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MEMORIALS 


OF 


meee PHOMAS DE WITT, D.D. 


iN RaW oe Yo: PRS: 
ANSON -D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY. 
1875. 


he 





Wok. 


CONTENTS. 


. FUNERAL ADDRESSES, 


. MEMORIAL SERVICES, 


. VARIOUS TRIBUTES, 


RESOLUTIONS, Erc., 


Pot RODUCTORY—BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, 


. PERSONAL REMINISCENCES, 


147 





meer ROWDUCTORY. 


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 





. 
¥ - 


INTRODUCTORY. 


Peeewoieror CAL. SKETCH. 


Noruinc can be more instructive and interesting to read 
than the records made by good and true men of one who, in 
the estimation of all, was a model of goodness and truth. 
Such are the addresses, sermons, and various personal reminis- 
cences brought together here as a tribute of honor and love 
to the late venerable Dr. De Witt. 

To the compiler of these memorials has been assigned the 
task—the privilege, rather—of preparing a biographical sketch 
by way of introduction. The request, coming from those 
who only had the right to make it, was so entirely unexpected 
and unsought, that it seemed as if it ought not to be denied; 
“what thou art commanded thee, think thereupon with rev- 
erence.” Therefore, though keenly alive to the fact that many 
more skillful hands could thus have been honored, the editor 
offers the following pages as preface to the more important 
documents. 

The noble and great in heart and mind need not the 
props of ancestry. But it is a natural feeling to take pleasure 


in tracing their lineage back like a narrow stream over the 
fe 
(1) 


2 | INTRODUCTORY. 


misty plains of the past, and discovering here and there some 
spot fertilized—some landmark made eminent in connection ' 
with it. De Witt is a very ancient name in Holland, and 
many men of note for wisdom and statesmanship, for bold- 
ness in war and fortitude in disaster, bore the honorable 
name. Macaulay tells of John De Witt, the Grand Pension- 
ary of the Province of Holland, “ whose ability, firmness, and 
integrity raised him to unrivalled authority in its municipal 
councils.” Before his memorable death occurred, one branch 
of the De Witt family had emigrated to America: “Tjerck 
Claezen (thought to be son of Nicholas) De Witt, who was 
born in Westphalia, 1620, and came to New York in 1656.” 
An exact list of his descendants for nearly 250 years may be 
found in the American Genealogical Review for December, 
1874, edited by Mr. Charles Moore. But we pass over them, 
though interesting, as details-too minute for a brief sketch, 
The grandfather of Dr. De Witt was Egbert, the seventh 
child of Andries; and his father, Thomas, was the seventh 
son of Egbert. He had nine sons, and but one daughter, 
Mary, his tenth and last child ; who married, in 1756, Colonel 
James Clinton, and was the mother of. the distinguished 
statesman, De Witt Clinton. Several of Egbert’s sons were 
soldiers and officers in the Revolutionary war; and we are 
told that “ Neponack, in the town of Rochester, Ulster Co., - 
where they were born, was remarkable for containing the 
lead’ mine of the Revolution.” 

Thomas, the father of Dr. De Witt, went in his early 
youth to join the American forces in Canada at the time of 


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 3 


Wolf’s victory over the French, and the surrender of Canada 
to the British. When the struggle to throw off the domin- 
ion of the mother-country began, he at once entered the con- 
tinental service, soon obtained a commission as captain, and 
did not lay down his arms until the close of the war. In 1775 
he went again into Canada, and was present, in December of 
that year, at the death of Montgomery in the attack at Que- 
bec. He was afterwards with Colonel Willett on the Mohawk, 
and at the siege of Fort Stanwick. In 1782, he married Miss 
Elsie Hasbrouck, a descendant of one of the old French Hu- 
guenot families, who, when persecuted for their Protestant- 
ism, had fled first to Germany, afterwards to Holland, and 
finally emigrated to America about the middle of the 17th 
century. | 

Dr. Thomas De Witt was the fifth and youngest child of 
his parents, and was born on the 13th of September, 1791, at 
Twaalfskill, just without the limits of Kingston. The house 
where he was born was a stone building of moderate size, sit- 
uated on a rural road, on one side of which the union of the 
Rondout creek with the merry waters of a mill-brook made 
pleasant music. The old Dutch Reformed Church, the only 
church in the Doctor’s youth in the village, was a mile and a 
half from the house, and the Kingston Academy was about as 
far. His childhood was marked by unusual conscientiousness 
. and quiet thoughtfulness. A story is told, as an example of 
his strict obedience to the very letter of his mother’s wishes, 
that once when he was a very little boy, his mother, on 
going out, placed him on a chair in the middle of the com- 


4 INTRODUCTORY. 


mon sitting-room, and told him to remain there until she 
returned. She was out much longer than she had intended 
to be, and while she was gone the old colored servant found 
the child in the way of her Saturday’s work. She wanted — 
him to move, but he would not, and then she attempted to 
move him herself, but had to give it up. He said his mother 
had placed him there, and told him to stay there. until she 
came back, and he meant to mind his mother.. Vhe old-fash- 
ioned virtue of minding the mother, the dutiful obedience, 
which, as Augustus Hare says, “is the foundation of all social 
-happiness, and of every social virtue,” is so lost sight of in 
these modern days of law-giving children and obedient pa- 
rents, that such an anecdote is refreshing. 

In a brief autobiographical manuscript, which contains a 
few of the prominent facts of Dr. De Witt’s life, he modestly 
tells us, that in his boyhood, he “ evinced a sedate disposition, 
and a taste for reading and study, and therefore his parents 
placed him, when very young, in the Kingston Academy ; 
that this academy was one of the oldest in the State, and in 
previous years sustained a high reputation, and attracted from 
other parts students who afterwards became distinguished in 
the annals of the State, among whom were De Witt Clinton 
and Abraham Van Vechten.” It is recorded (not by himself), 
that as a boy at school, he was always deeply absorbed in his 
studies, and always went directly at what he had to do, with- 
out looking about and becoming, as other boys did, diverted 
in play. The Hon. A. B. Hasbrouck, in a letter to the Rev. 
Dr. Chambers (who kindly allows us to use its imteresting 


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 5 


information) writes: “The peculiarity of manner which was 
so marked in after life, was in De Witt’s boyhood equally no- 
ted and noticeable. He was seldom seen without a book in 
his hand, and the volumes of the little library belonging to 
the academy, bore evident marks of his use of them. Not- 
withstanding the distance of his residence from the school, 
he was ever ready to answer at the roll-call in spite of wind 
and weather. His exercises in declamation were much ad- 
mired by us, the pieces being generally of a tender and pathetic 
character, and spoken with much fervor. I cannot speak of 
his recitations, as we were not in the same class; but I re- 
member that he was the favorite pupil of the master, in a 
school of nearly a hundred pursuing classical studies. The 
academy was at that time in charge of the Rev. David B. 
Warden, an Irish Protestant, who had fled from his country 
during the troubles there in 1798. He was considered to be, 
and I believe was, a finished scholar, very severe, and very ex- 
acting. His partiality for De Witt, therefore, would seem to 
indicate his estimate of his pupil’s recitations. We boys gave 
him the name of Sir Isaac Newton; not for his knowledge 
of science, which was not taught even in its humblest form, 
but simply because he towered above us-all in our mental 
exercises. He never joined in our sports, partly because of 
his distant residence from the village, but more, I think, be- 
cause of his moods of abstraction and fondness for books. 
Could any one have surveyed the school to foretell the 
future of the pupils, he would have selected De Witt as the 
one to be most distinguished—and so he was.” 


6 INTRODUCTORY. 


It is evident from this graphic account, which we have 
_ quoted verbatim, of his early school-days, that he had already 
chosen wisdom as his daily monitor, “the very true beginning 
of which is the desire of discipline.” 

The excellent Dr. Nott was President of Union College, 
Schenectady, when young De Witt entered the last quarter 
of the Sophomore class, in May, 1806, being only a little over 
fourteen years old.. He graduated in July, 1808, and at the 
college commencement that summer, had the Latin saluta- 
tory assigned to him. While in college, his attention dwelt 
frequently on the subject of religion, but it was not until his 
return home that he decided to give his heart to the Saviour, 
and the labors of his future life to the ministry. At the close of 
the year 1808, he joined the Dutch Church, under the pastoral 
care of the Rev. Dr. Gosman, whose preaching and conversa- 
tion had helped to form his religious decision. He passed 
the next year studying theology with the Rev. Dr. Broadhead, 
at Rhinebeck; and the year following with Dr. Froeligh, of 
Schraalenberg, New Jersey, who was appointed by Synod, 
Professor of Theology. | 

In the year 1810 the Theological Seminary of the Dutch 
Church was established in New Brunswick, at first called 
“ Queens,” now Rutgers College ; and the Rev. Dr. John 
Livingston was elected as President and Professor of Theol- 
ogy. For both these offices he was pre-eminently fitted ; for 
the first, by his wise circumspection. and engaging courteous- 
ness of manner; and for the second, by his ripe scholarship 
and ardent love for evangelical truth. Dr. Livingston re- 


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 7 


moved to New Brunswick, and entered on these double 
duties in the autumn, when Thomas De Witt entered the 
seminary as a student. Dr. Livingston possessed a remark- 
ably tall, commanding, and dignified presence ; and: De Witt 
used to tell how, on the first evening of his arrival at col- 
lege when standing by the fire-place of the large students’ 
room, he felt half-afraid to speak as he saw Dr. L. approach- 
ing. But that fear soon vanished, when the Doctor, putting 
his hand on the young man’s shoulder, said, affectionately, 
“So you have come to learn divinity? Do you love the 
Lord Jesus Christ?” “I hope I do,’ was the reply. “Oh,” 
said Dr. Livingston, “you must have more than a oge 
about that; you must be very sure you do, before you 
can preach.” The mutual influence must have been strong 
between the minds of a lecturer so ably qualified, and a 
learner so rarely gifted with native genius and ingrafted 
erace. 

De Witt was two years at the seminary, graduated in June, 
1812, and was licensed to preach by the Synod of New Bruns- 
wick. He passed the summer in supplying various vacant 
churches, to some of which he was unanimously invited ; and 
in the autumn he accepted a call from the united congrega- 
tions of Hopewell and New Hackensack, in-Duchess Co., and ° 
was ordained, November 24, in the Hopewell Church. The 
bounds of these parishes extended far; and as within their 
vicinity, particularly to the eastward, there was a great lack 
of religious privileges, the young divine was a missionary in 
the truest sense of the word, as well as a constant preacher in 


8. INTRODUCTORY. 


his own two pulpits. He might be seen frequently by those 
who lived in the neighborhood, riding on horseback, the reins 
slack, with a book or paper in his hand, reading as he rode. 
And many stories are told of his absent moods, and the odd 
mistakes they produced, at which he would smile as pleasantly 
as any one. Doubtless he felt, with good Bishop Hall, “ Let 
me but have time for my thoughts, but leisure to think on 
Heaven, and grace to my leisure, and I can be happy in spite 
of the world.” He tells us, in the manuscript referred to, 
“the extent of territory covered by my parish led me to be 
much on the road in evening lectures, and induced the habit, 
which continued through life, of preaching from sketches 
or from mental preparation.” In this he resembled his 
tutor, Dr. Livingston, who preached from brief notes, and 
very often without writing at all. In 1817, when he had 
only been a few years in the ministry, he received an invita- 
tion from New Brunswick, to become Professor of Biblical 
Literature and Ecclesiastical History in Rutgers College, an 
honor which he declined. In 1818 it was a second time prof- 
fered, but again refused. The state of religion, which had 
been so lifeless in the congregation under his care, had begun 
to revive, and he could not be tempted to leave a field that 
gave promise of yielding fruit to the patient laborer. __ 

In 1825 the connection between these two churches. 
was broken; “a dissolution that should have taken place 
before, but it was in.a measure prevented by the common 
attachment to the existing minister.” He then became 
pastor of Hopewell alone. An only and widowed sister 


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. on 


shared his home, and the attachment of his people in that vil- 
lage. She died in 1833, leaving “ many precious memories” to 
her devoted brother. A few years before this event, he mar- 
ried Miss Eliza Ann Waterman, of New York, who was a merh- 
ber of Dr. McMurray’s church, in Rutgers Street. This excel- 
lent lady doubled his joys, and divided his cares, during many 
years of wedded peace, and died but a few months before him. 
“ A gracious woman retaineth honour;” and we must be allowed 
the pleasure of quoting here the tributes of affectionate re- 
spect paid to her by the colleagues of her husband, for none 
knew better than they how worthy she was of the same. Dr. 
Vermilye said: “ Of a comely person, and dignified manners, 
genial and kind, with a ready and clear mind, and great activ- 
ity and energy, she was by her natural gifts well adapted to 
conduct the affairs of her household with skill, and also to 
move with marked propriety and acceptance in that important 
sphere in which her marriage had placed her. A minister’s 
wife may err in opposite directions, by excess of activity, 
which may be thought assuming and presumptuous; or, by a 
too retiring course, which may be construed into indiffer- 
ence to her husband’s avocation and usefulness, and to the 
advancement of the many benevolent movements which 
spring from and cluster around the church. ‘Through these 
dangers Mrs. De Witt held her course with signal discretion. 
Her husband’s success was ever in her thoughts; to advance 
that good end was her high ambition, and the heart of 
her husband could safely trust in her.” Dr. Chambers, 
alluding to the warm recollections cherished by a family 


Io INTRODUCTORY. 


(that of the late Gen. John Frelinghuysen), who had enter’ 
tained Dr. De Witt and his bride, soon after they were mar- 
ried, says: “I remember well ‘the frequent allusions to the 
great personal beauty of Mrs. De Witt, her sprightliness and 
winsome grace. Subsequently, I had ample opportunity to 
see and feel for myself, how just they were. Coming to New 
York as an associate pastor, | was first for days and weeks 
domiciled under her hospitable roof; and formed a pleasant 
intimacy, which continued to the end of her life. During all 
these years there never was a cloud between us, but innumer- 
able acts of kindness which I never shall forget.” The Rey. 
Dr. Plumer, one of the most valued friends of the family, 
gave the same testimony, saying, as he pointed to her coffin, 
“There lie the mortal remains of as much modest, social, and 
moral worth as one will be apt to find in a lifetime. The 
God of nature and grace had beautifully adorned her heart 
and mind.” 

Dr. De Witt received a call to the Collegiate Reformed 
Dutch Church, of New York, in the spring of 1826, which he 
declined ; but having it again pressed upon him the follow- 
‘Ing spring, he accepted it, and was installed the 16th Septem- 
ber, 1827. His colleagues then were the Rev. Drs. Kuypers, 
Knox, and Brownlee. The first died in 1833, Dr. Knox in 
1858, and Dr. Brownlee in 1860. Afterwards Drs. Vermilye, 
Chambers, and Duryea filled the collegiate pulpits with him ; 
and upon the resignation first of himself, and then of Dr. Ver- 
milye, and the removal of Dr. Duryea to Brooklyn, the care 
of these churches devolved upon Drs. Chambers, Ludlow, and 


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 3 II 


Ormiston, where it now rests. When Dr. De Witt, however, 
had resigned his stated duties as a preacher he continued to 
fill the position of senior pastor until his death, when Dr. Ver- 
milye assumed that office. _ 

A long term, upwards of forty-five years, Dr. De Witt lived 
in the city of New York, loved, honored, and revered by all 
classes of men and all denominations of Christians. He was 
always at the post of duty; ready, not only for the regularly- 
recurring ministrations of pulpit, | Bible-class, and_ lecture- 
room, but for any sudden summons to grief-stricken souls, to 
the beds of the sick and dying, to funerals, whether of friend 
or stranger, far or near. Yet he always seemed to be at leis- 
ure; he was never in a hurry; and no one who sought his 
advice, or asked a kindness, ever heard from his lips the reply, 
1 have no time. Many were the societies of which he was 
either an efficient manager or a liberal and active member. 
Foreign missions and domestic missions were equally near to 
his heart. Asylums for orphans and half orphans, for the 
aged and infirm, and for all objects of mercy, met with his 
cordial sympathy and support. From the meeting of the 
Bible Society he was never absent, while he was one of the 
first to establish and to forward the interests of the American 
Tract Society. In almost all boards and committees on various 
charities he was to be found, blessing, encouraging, and sup- 
porting them by his prayers, his counsel, and his contributions. 
The dignity of his presence was often sought on literary occa- 
sions, and he was always ready to welcome, in his quaintly cour- 
teous style, visitors from other cities or other lands, renowned 


12 INTRODUCTORY. 


for their writings or their deeds. His connection with the 
New York Historical Society was of long and honorable — 
standing. “He became a member of it in 1838. For ten 
years he was regularly elected second, and for twenty, first 
vice-president. In 1870 he was chosen president, and filled 
that office for two years, when he declined a re-election. He 
was a very active and useful member of this society. In 
1844 he prepared and read a paper, entitled ‘Sketches of 
New Netherlands, and in 1848 another on the ‘ Sources of 
the Early Settlements in the State of New York.’ Both these 
papers have been printed in the Society’s ‘ Proceedings.’ 
His translations from the Dutch, of important materials for 
the History of New York, also appear in the Society’s collec- 
tions. In the public celebrations of the Society, Dr. De Witt 
was its recognized chaplain, and his occasional services in 
that capacity are fresh in the memory of its members. When 
the Hon. Charles Francis Adams delivered, in December 
1870, his anniversary discourse, on the Struggle for Neutrality 
in America, Dr. De Witt was president, and introduced the 
orator.”* Dr. Vermilye’s interesting address before the His- 
torical Society, the first time it met after Dr. De Witt’s death, 
has been recently published and circulated by the Society. 
“The Chrestzan [ntellegencer, the organ of the Reformed 
Church, was at one time edited by an association of ministers,” 
writes Mr. Charles Van Wyck, “ Dr. De Witt acting as chair- 
man from 1831 to 1843, when the Rey. John Bevier became 
the editor. For twelve years or more Dr. De Witt made it 


* Quoted from the minutes of the Society. 


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 13 


his business to visit the office, read the exchanges, and sup- 
ply the editorial department voluntarily. The character and 
importance of the paper was fully established under his kind 
encouragement and wise control.” 

In the summer of 1846 the even tenor of Dr. De Witt’s 
life was broken by a short visit to Holland and to England, 
accompanied by his eldest daughter and a few friends. The 
dislike he had to writing, not sermons only, but letters and 
diaries, is to be regretted; but for that we might possess much 
of interest and value. With his strong imagination and sound 
judgment, the impressions and opinions formed among new 
scenes and new people would have been vividly and wisely 
presented. | | 

One of the friends who were with him that summer says: 
“As a travelling companion he was uniformly cheerful and 
pleasant. With a temper the most equable and patient, always 
considerate, conciliating, and charitable, his daily life was an 
unostentatious example to his fellow-travellers. In review- 
ing that journey to the Old World, which seems now almost 
like a dream, Dr. De Witt stands out in my mind the most 
prominent object. His animating and social spirit were mani- 
fested then in the varied scenes and novelties which met us 
continually in our route, and his historical knowledge stood 
_ ready for us at every turn, giving additional interest to our 
rapid transit from place to place.” Among the personal remi- 
niscences in this volume, will be found most interesting 
letters from the Rev. Dr. Van Zandt, of the Theological Sem- 
inary, New Brunswick, and from Dr. Forsyth, chaplain of the 


14. “INTRODUCTORY. 


U.S. Military Academy at West Point, relating to the visit 
of Dr. De Witt to Europe. 

Upon a full, warm heart (which, as Southey says, “is tan- 
tamount to a virtuous one,”) the events of life not observed 
by the world make the most lasting impression. Death from 
time to time visited Dr. De Witt’s happy home-circle; but 
never without a token-—“the arrow with a point sharpened 
by love ”"—that his errand was to carry away from earth to 
heaven. The first-born child was taken first, before she could 
turn her baby-syllables into words; and again a little boy, 
named after his father, scarcely two years old. Some years 
afterwards a gentle girl of eleven, naturally a timid child, was 
made willing by her simple faith in Christ to meet death 
with asmile. Then another little boy of the same name and 
age as the first. After these losses a long period of uninter- 
rupted loving intercourse between parents and children was 
granted. | 

The two elder daughters were married within a year of 
each other, and formed happy homes of their own. Two 
children only remained to the father and mother; but they 
were not destined to remain long. God loved His servants 
too well to permit them to go down into the vale of years 
without detaching them more loosely from earth, and refining 
them still further for heaven. So death was again sent into 
the diminished household, and the third daughter was called 
away. She was just in the early dawn of womanhood, prom- 
ising fair for a holy and beautiful life, but the sun of her 
bright morning soon ascended out of sight in a perfect and 


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 15 


_ eternal day. This loss was a sore stroke to the parents, and it 
was followed six months after by one equally severe. The 
only son, Theodore Frelinghuysen, a youth of nineteen, amia- 
ble ard winning in temper and manner, died suddenly, one 
morning in May, 1862, without any apparent illness, of con- 
jestion of the brain. Ai friend of the family writes : “I called 
at Dr. De Witt’s house immediately after hearing of the sud- 
den death of his only son, expecting to find him bowed down 
and overcome by that heavy stroke. He met me at the door, 
and on my saying, “Oh, Doctor, can this be true ?” his lip 
quivered, but he merely replied, “We must remember the 
mercies.” When we were abroad his youngest child died. 
He heard of it in London, and as we were sitting at the 
dinner-table, he said to me in a low tone of voice, “ Little 
Tommy is dead; do not speak of it.” Thus, like the Old 
Testament saints who walked with God, and communed 
with Him as friend with friend, Dr. De Witt neither questioned 
nor murmured when severe afflictions befel him, or wished the 
will of heaven other than it was. Like Aaron, when the 
blow came, “he held his peace.” Like Eli, he said: “It is the 
Lord, let Him do as seemeth Him good.” Like Job,“ The 
Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away ; blessed be the name of 
the Lord.” Like David, “I shall go to Him, but He shall not 
return to me. I was dumb, I opened not my mouth because 
Thou didst it.” There was something sublime in the silence 
of his submission, for Dr. De Witt was a tender-hearted 
man. Yes, “with the most universal sympathy for outward 
things,” his faith made him “inwardly calm, impregnable ; 


16 INTRODUCTORY. 


through all afflictions he held on his way SO cae but 
inflexibly.” 


The greatest bereavement, however, was to come; but not 


yet for eleven years. In the meantime, he made a formal 
resignation of his position as pastor and preacher; although his 


resting from stated labor was not an idle rest. Seldom dida . 


Sabbath pass without one sermon; or a lecture night or 
prayer-meeting, without the consolations of his rich experience 
in exhortation or in prayer, The last great public act of his 
life was the dedication of the new Reformed Church on the 
corner of 48th Street and Fifth Avenue, in New York, in No- 
vember, 1872. A private letter thus speaks of this effort: 
“ Fle seemed feeble, and had some difficulty in mounting the 
pulpit stairs ; but when he came forward, the spirit was strong 
enough to overcome the weakness of the flesh, and what he 
uttered was more like inspiration than anything I had ever 
heard from mortal lips. When he closed, I involuntarily said, 
‘Now let Thy servant depart in peace.’ He has been spared 
to see this work finished, and his whole soul was in the matter.” 

He was over eighty when this dedication service took 
place. It was truly observed by a competent judge of such 
matters: “It was a great mistake to suppose that Dr. De 


Witt declined in power with age. Some of the very grandest 


flights of eloquence he ever uttered were in the closing days 
of his ministry.” 

He had just passed his eighty-second birth-day when the 
final bereavement came. It was the first Sabbath of October; 
one of those soft, warm, balmy days, so holy in its sweet 


- 


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 17 


peacefulness, that, though it seemed a privilege to breathe the 
delicious air, it also seemed as if it would be a boon to a 
Christian to pass from such a transcript of heaven below to 
the reality above. Mrs. De Witt had been to church in the 
morning, and staid to the communion, at which her vener- 
able husband had assisted. She remained until almost every 
one had left the church, and spoke to some of her friends 
about her enjoyment of the service, alluding to her husband’s 
address, which she thought had been unusually touching. 
After she returned jhome she conversed at the dinner-table 
with more than common cheerfulness, and went up stairs, 
going into the Doctor’s study for something she wanted to 
read. As she passed through to her own room, she fell at 
the door-sill, and when lifted to her sofa, seemed faint and 
unable to speak. Her eldest daughter, who had come to New 
York for a few days’ visit,and was’ unexpectedly,,and, as it 
proved, providentially detained, sent for the physician, who 
soon saw that there was nothing to be done. Dr. De Witt 
came from his study, and, on seeing the deathly paleness of 
cheek and brow, stooped over, and said, “I need not ask you 
if you love Jesus; you testified to that this morning!” She 
smiled, but her ebbing breath could muster no reply, and in a 
little while that Saviour, whose “inward and spiritual grace” 
had strengthened her soul in the morning’s communion, 
received her to Himself. Before the golden sun of that Oc- 
tober Sabbath had set, she had entered through the gates of 
the city where the “ Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are 
the temple thereof.” 


18 INTRODUCTORY. 


At her funeral, addresses were made which have been 
already quoted. But the words of her aged and sorely-stricken 
husband at the grave in Greenwood, which burst from him, 
uncontrolled, as the coffin was lowered to its hiding-place, 
startled and thrilled all who heard them: “ Farewell, my 
beloved, honored, and faithful wife. The tie that united us is 
severed. Thou art with Jesus, in glory, and He is with me by 
His grace. I shall soon be with you. Farewell!” 

So came the last sorrow on the winter of his age. But as 
upon the spotless surface of the wintry snow, we see that the © 
shadows cast of rock or tree are not black or dense, but 
plainly the beautiful azure of the sky is mingled in their dark- 
ness ; so upon the hoary head of four-score years, we saw that 
the shadows of these sorrows had in them more of heaven’s 
light than the darkness of earth. His daughters would fain 
have removed him to their homes, and by turns have taken 
care of him, enjoying the honor of his presence and the bene- 
diction of his prayers; but he clung to the old home where 
he had lived for so many years, and from which children and 
wife had been borne to the grave. So he contented himself 
by an occasional visit to his daughters, and remained in his 
own house. He had an early portrait of his wife, which had 
been put away to make room for a more modern one, brought 
down and carefully hung over the mantel-piece in his study. 
That study was the dearest spot on earth to him, hallowed by, 
many years of thought and prayer. And there, in his large 
easy chair, books everywhere around him, on the table and 
mantel-piece, as well as in the over-filled cases that lined the 


\ 


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. IQ 


room, he might be seen sitting alone, with his noble head up- 
lifted, and his eyes bright yet tremulous with tears of hope 
and faith, gazing on that beloved portrait. He was not with- 
out companionship, however; and many of those who called 
to visit him during that winter, can testify to his serene and 
peace-giving temper, and to the unselfish way in which he 
entered into their own concerns, and seemed as interested in 
the welfare of the world in general, as if he were taking an 
active part in it. Indeed, in recalling his happy beaming 
smile, and his sympathetic words and tones, a saying of one 
of the old divines is recalled als “True saints in youth do 
always prove angels in their age.” 

In the spring of 1874 he went to Philadelphia to pay 
his eldest daughter a visit. .He evidently seemed to know, 
although he said nothing about it, that this would be his 
last visit. He kept within doors almost all the time, and 
by his conversation and kindness and sympathy, made every 
member of the household feel a greater depth of tenderness 
toward him, and a stronger reluctance to let him go. He 
was always particularly fond of children; and now he testi- 
fied his love to his grand-children in many ways. He would 
sit by the youngest grandson of an evening when he was 
studying his lessons for the next day, and show the deep- 
est interest in all his books. The boy will never forget, how, 
when he found his Latin lines hard to construe, he was 
assisted by his aged grandfather. “ Why, grandpa, how can 
you remember so well when you have not read Virgil for so 
many years?” “That is an easy passage to read, my son.’ 


20 INTRODUCTORY. 


“No, grandpa, I think it is very difficult; but you have got 
a wonderful memory, only you are so modest you will not 
say so.” Each one of the family remarked how bright all his 
mental faculties were, and how warm the affections of his 
great heart, and each one grieved when he went back to his 
own home. 

It was on Thursday, the 7th of May, that he began to 
show signs of indisposition and languor that were very 
unusual, His daughter, who resides in New York, and whose 
daily delight was a visit to her father, observed his failing 
strength with a presentiment of sorrow, and sent for her 
sister from Philadelphia. This lady with her children arrived 
the next day, and found her father sitting in his easy chair 
with a book in his hand. He gave her a warm greeting, 
saying: “I am glad you have come, for I feel as if this were 
my last sickness, and I want you with me.” He seemed very 
comfortable, however, and complained of nothing but weari- 
ness for the next few days. On Monday, the 11th, he received 
visits in his study from a number of friends. Dr. Adams and 
Dr. Hall called, and he enjoyed conversation with them. Mr. 
and Mrs. Robezt Carter, also, with whom he recalled pleasant 
memories of their journey to Europe in 1846; and talked of 
many valuable works Mr. Carter had published. On Tuesday 
morning he fell asleep on his study sofa, and when he awoke, he 
looked around and said: “ Are you all here ?” His two daugh- 
ters were sitting by him, and said: “ Yes, dear father.” He 
then asked them to read the 17th Chapter of St. John, and 
when it was finished, he, still in the same reclining posi- 


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 2I 


tion, lifted up his hands, and began pouring out his heart 
in prayer with that feeling and warmth of devotion so pecu- 
liar to him at all times; but now it seemed as if he were 
at the very gate of heaven, full of thanksgiving. He 
thanked God for the mercies vouchsafed to him during his 
whole life, particularly for those of his ministry, in which 
he humbly acknowledged the Divine aid. “Because Thou 
hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of Thy wings 
will I rejoice; my soul followeth hard after Thee, Thy 
right hand has upheld me.” He thanked God for his dear 
wife’s cherished life and companionship, and for her peace- 
ful and painless death; and then, as if Jesus were Himself 
close by interceding in him and for him, he took up the 
words of our Saviour’s prayer, and with increasing fervor said: 
“And now, oh, Father, glorify Thyself, and as Thou hast 
promised to Thy Son, that they whom Thou hast given Him 
should be with Thee where Thou art, verify Thine own prom- 
ise, and be with me to the end.” That same morning the 
daughter of his former revered colleague, Dr. Knox, came to 
see him, and he gave her the “ Memoir of Dr. Guthrie,” which 
he had ordered the previous day, saying: “I thought yester- 
day I should read it, but I shall not.” As she left the room, 
he said, “The Lord be with you and yours. I bless you for 
your own sake, for your father’s sake, but most of all for your 
Saviour’s and my Saviour’s sake.” A number of other friends 
called during the day; he saw them all, and bade each an 
impressive farewell. At eight o’clock in the evening, he 
seemed very tired, and said, “ Let us have prayers.” He com- 


22 INTRODUCTORY. 


menced reading the soth Psalm, but as his breathing seemed 
difficult, his elder daughter offered to read, but he said no, and 
struggled through the twenty-three verses. He then offered 
up one of his fervent prayers. As one of his daughters helped 
him from the study to his own room, he turned and said, 


“You all pity me; but oh, how much happier I am than any 


of you.” He slept tranquilly that night, but about five in 
the morning, was seized with a sharp pain in the side: pneu- 
monia had set in. He suffered somewhat all that day and 
night, and was too much oppressed to converse. But though 
very few words were uttered on his sick-bed, his ready, kindly 
smile, when any little attentions were paid him, spoke his 
perfect love and peace. On Thursday he again seemed easy ; 
and on awakening from a short sleep in the middle of the 
day, he asked his younger daughter to bring pencil and 
paper. Then, with a calm voice, he’ dictated his wishes 
with regard to his funeral, begging that clergymen of differ- 
ent denominations, with whom he had held pleasant inter- 
course, should be asked as pall-bearers; and that others, 
whom he also named, should be requested to share in 
the funeral services at the house and in the church. That 
evening he was suddenly seized with most acute and alarm- 
ing pains in his chest and side, which lasted without intermis- 
sion through the night. He was forced to cry out sometimes, 
while his strong-built frame was convulsed and shaken to and 
fro with agony. He prayed aloud for patience and submis- 
sion, and at one time said, “I never knew before the force 
of that text, ‘The pains of hell gat hold on me.” But He 





: 
4 


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 23 


who “was made perfect through suffering,” the great Refiner, 
was watching the fire, and only meant to make the gold more 
shining and pure, so that His own image could be plainly 
seen. For twelve hours this extreme pain lasted; on Friday 
morning relief came, and his grateful soul was “compassed 
about with songs of deliverance.” Many times during that 
day, and the next, when he thanked God for the quiet ease 
that had been restored to him, he said : “ I never should have 
known rest from pain but for that night.”. On Sunday morn- 
ing, on being told that many clergymen and friends had sent 
to inquire about him, he said, “Oh, how kind every one is to 
me ; say that I am comfortable, but very, very weak.” When 
his two sons-in-law came home from morning service, 
Mr. J asked if he should read to him. He said, “ Yes; 
call the servants and children all in.” So the daughters and 
their husbands, and the four grand-children, and all the servants, 
gathered together in the hushed room. The 17th Chapter of 
St. John again was read; for the sweet full appropriation by 
the dying minister, in the midst of his own family, of Jesus’ 
last prayer with His apostles, made that chapter so doubly 
impressive. “And now I am no more in the world, but these 
are in the world, and I come to Thee. Holy Father, keep 
through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given me, 
that they may be one as we are. [ pray not that Thou should- 
est take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep 
them from the evil.” And again he poured out his soul in 
prayer, commending each separate one to the tender care of 
the Saviour, and asking’ with humble | submissiveness, that, if 





24. INTRODUCTORY. 


it were the will of God, he might be spared a return of the 
previous suffering. After prayer he called his grand-children 
to his bed-side, and blessed them each with patriarchal ten- 
derness ; and then, as if he did not want to cloud the young 
hearts with too much solemnity, he said with a bright smile, 
“Ts not dinner ready yet; I hope Anne has something nice 
for the boys?” In the afternoon his elder daughter repeated 
a number of hymns to him; some of which he designated, 
among them, “ Thine earthly Sabbaths, Lord, we love.” And 
when she came to that verse, “No more fatigue, no more 
distress,” he said, “ Those lines are doubly sweet since that night 
of agony. I should not have known their full meaning but 
for that suffering.” So it seemed that that taste of the river 
of death, he had on Thursday night, “though a little bitterish 
to the palate, was sweet when it was down,” for the memory 
of it was always serving to make the sense of ease so doubly 
grateful. About five that afternoon he called both his daugh- 
ters to his bedside, kissed them, and spoke to them tenderly 
of their mother. After afternoon service a friend from the 
country (between whose father and Dr. De Witt there had 
existed a warm friendship), who had not heard of his illness 
until the tidings had been received in church, hurried down to 
his house with irrepressible distress at the sudden news. The 
relief was great when she heard at the door that he was very 
comfortable, and afterwards on being taken to his room to 
find him looking so much better than fear had depicted him. 
He asked, with his natural kindness, after her health and wel- 
fare, and on bidding her good-bye, blessed her affectionately 





BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 25 


As she reached the door he raised his voice to a higher tone, 
and said, “ The next time I see you will be in heaven.” 

That evening he was so much better than he had been since 
he first took to his bed, that hope seemed to pervade the whole 
household. When his younger daughter and her husband 
were leaving for the night, they asked, “ Shall we have prayers 
before we go?” He gave assent by beginning to repeat the 
23d Psalm, in which they all joined in unison; and then his 
excellent son-in-law committed all, but especially the beloved 
and cherished father, to the keeping of the Lord, the Shep- 
herd. About ten, he said to the rest who were lingering about 
him, “ Now all must go to bed; De Witt” (his eldest grand- 
son) “will stay with me.” He passed a pleasant night, and the 
next morning seemed so decidedly improved that his dear 
grandson went back to college, and others of the family 
attended to what seemed important outside the sick-room, 
and apart from the one chief object of care. When Mr. J., 
his younger son-in-law, came in to see how his father was, on 
his way down town, Dr. De Witt smiled, and shaking his 
hand with an unusually warm grasp, said, “ Do you think you 
will be able to take care of me a little longer?” The answer 
can be well imagined. His faithful attendant, who had de- 
voted her services to him for many months, suggested that he 
would be refreshed if he could sit up while his bed was made. 
He acquiesced with difficulty, but cheerfully. Heeven called 
for the morning’s paper, that he might himself read about the 
overflow of the river in Massachusetts; and when the 
arrangements were finished for his greater comfort and refresh- 


26 INTRODUCTORY. 


ment, he was assisted into bed, and soon fell into a sweet 
slumber. 

Perhaps his family had been reckoning upon some rare 
demonstrations of triumph over the last enemy; perhaps it 
seemed to them no more than natural that so holy and ripe a 
Christian should at the last utter some words to be forever 
treasured ; or, they expected that just now for a little while 
the parting had been put off, and that their precious one was 
to be spared to them a little longer. But God had ordered 
His messenger to come at a moment when they looked not for 
him. So this sleep, that looked like the sleep of convales- 
cence, was suddenly changed—with only a brief waking” be- 
tween—just time enough for a call that summoned his startled 
daughters to his side—into the motionless sleep of death. 
“As thy servants were busy here and there, he was gone.” 

His funeral took place at 2:30 p. mM. on Thursday, the 21st 
of May, from the Fourth Street Church, corner of Lafayette 
Place. Seldom, if ever, excepting at the funeral of Dr. Knox, 
has a more solemn and crowded. assembly been gathered 
within its walls. By one o'clock all the galleries were packed, 
and all the pews down stairs under the galleries. During 
this hour of waiting a thunder-storm, which had been threaten- 
ing all the morning, was raging without, and added a sombre 
mournfulness to the church within, which was draped in black 
cloth wherever it could be hung. The pulpit, with its heavy 
columns, was lined and curtained, the galleries festooned, and 
the communion table and the tables in the elders’ and dea- 
cons’ pews were covered with it. At two the doors were 





BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. si 


opened, and the usher came down the middle aisle, carrying 
two large crowns of exquisite flowers, and placed them on the 
table in front of the pulpit, on either side a vase containing 
ears of wheat and lilies of all sorts. Just then—it will be re- 
membered by all who were present—a gleam of bright sun- 
light came through the opened gallery window and glanced 
down on the pure, white flowers, showing that the thunder- 
storm had broken away, and bringing out into such strong re- 
lef the crowns on the table, that it seemed emblematical of 
the glory received by him with whom all the storms of life 
were over forever. The funeral procession then advanced. 
Dr. Vermilye, Dr. Adams, Dr. Campbell, Dr. McElroy, Dr. 
Tyng, Dr. Forsyth, Dr. Duryea, and Dr. Ludlow, walked im- 
mediately in front of the coffin. The pall-bearers were Dr. 
Morgan Dix, of the Episcopal Church, Rector of Old Trinity ; 
Drs. Hutton and Rogers, of the Reformed Church; Dr. John 
Hall, of the Presbyterian; Dr. William A. Williams, of the 
Baptist; President Woolsey, LL.D., of the Congregational ; 
Dr. Reinke, of the Moravian, and Dr. Holdich, of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church. Then followed the family of the de- 
ceased, and the consistories of the three Collegiate Churches. 
Then the members of the Historical Society, headed by the 
distinguished veteran poet, William Cullen Bryant. Other 
societies followed, and a vast concourse of clergymen, students, 
and citizens of all persuasions and professions, filing off into 
the pews, until the whole body of the spacious church was so 
crowded that there was no more standing-room, and multi- 
tudes were obliged to go away. Dr. Tyng, Dr. Vermilye, Dr. 


28 INTRODUCTORY. 


Campbell, Dr. Adams, Dr. McElroy, and Dr. Duryea occu- 
pied the pulpit ; and between them divided the solemn, affec- 
tionate services. The hymns, “ Asleep in Jesus,’ and “ How 
blest the righteous when he dies,’ were sung, and the organ 
accompanied them, faultlessly; so softly, that it would not 
have been too loud for a room, yet so clearly, the four parts in 
such perfect harmony, that every word and letter were dis- 
tinctly heard. After the services, the lid of the coffin was 
lifted, and the whole congregation silently moved up the side ~ 
aisles, took a last reverential look at the holy repose of the 
beloved pastor, father, and friend, and then passed out of 
church. We remained until all had gone, and the coffin was 
again closed, solemnly meditating on the sublime beauty of 
death, the immortality beyond, and the happy unions that 
were soon to come. 

The remains were carried to the family vault in Greenwood 
Cemetery. , 

Dr. De Witt was truly a: great man. The elements of his 
moral greatness were humility and truth. From his humility 
sprang his unexampled serenity of temper and quietness of 
spirit. Those who knew him best never remember to have 
seen him impatient under contradiction, or irritated by oppo- 
sition. Opinions on important as well as unimportant sub- 
jects will differ among good men. But there are some who 
seem to think that all who do not agree with them are less 
wise, less clear-sighted than themselves, or else they translate 
the non-agreement into a cause for quarrel. Not so with Dr. 
De Witt. While he possessed himself the most sagacious 





BIOGRAPHICAL: SKETCH. 29 


judgment, the most carefully-weighed decisions on subjects of 
serious thought, he was not only tolerant of differences, but 
tender of those who differed from him, quite willing that the 
view taken from the standpoint of another should be as fairly 
observed as his own. This made him so entirely free from 
bigotry, that “ offshoot of pride.” Though tolerant of the 
opinions of others, in his own he was firm and decided. 
While he gave the right hand of fellowship to all Christians 
who loved the Lord Jesus Christ, yet he was a conservative 
adherent to his own branch of the church. He loved every 
~ganon of the Synod of Dort, every form of its liturgy, every 
question and answer of the Heidelberg Catechism. He loved 
the very name of the Reformed Dutch Church, and could not 
bear any change in its old, distinctive, time-honored title. 
His humility kept him utterly free from egotism and from 
boasting. Few could possess a stronger control over speech ; 
and though by no means deficient in the power of conversa- 
tion, he fully tested the golden value of silence. Whether 
among his own household, or in the circles of his ministerial 
friends, no observer could have failed to mark the simplicity 
and transparency of his talk, and to love it for its “meekness 
of wisdom.” They might with justice have quoted St. James— 
“Tf any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, 
and able also to bridle the whole body.” He had sometimes 
a quaint, sententious way of uttering a poetical thought or 
giving a decided opinion. To an old lady of ninety whose dark 
hair was scarcely streaked with grey, he observed, “ Madam, 
you have none of the flowers of age upon your brow.” And 


30 INTRODUCTORY. 


when paying a New Year's call on a friend, who urged him 
to take a glass of wine, he refused, saying, “ We must avoid 
the appearance of evil.” On being asked what he would do 
if a fugitive slave were to come to him for shelter, he said, “ I 
would take him in, and if need be, go to jail for it.” | 

Under his calm and dignified exterior was hidden the fire 
and fervor of a poet. This, occasionally kindled in familiar 
intercourse, was constantly flaming forth in his pulpit exer- 
cises, It by no means interfered with the plain, practical 
lessons which all earnest Christians love to hear constantly 
enforced ; the faith that justifies, the justification that gives 
peace, the peace that helps to work, the works that kindle. 
love, and the love that goes back again to faith, the whole 
fabric inwrought by the. Spirit of Christ. His wonderful im- 
agination only served to enhance the joy of “the glorious gos- 
pel of the blessed God,” which was the beginning and end of 
his preaching. The effect was to melt the heart, and stamp 
the Divine image upon it, and to elevate the mind, and show 
it things unseen and eternal. Some excellent critics on Dr. 
De Witt’s preaching have said it was like the inspiration of a 
Hebrew prophet. One of them writes: “It seems to me an 
error to call Dr. De Witt an extemporaneous preacher. He 
left nothing except the mere verbiage to the impulse of the 
moment. Exact, careful, systematic, severe thought was the 
foundation of his discourses, and then, after such thought, 
an earnest heart inspired the language he employed.” Dr. 
Bethune (and the eloquent know best how to appreciate elo- 
quence) once said on listening to one of Dr. De Witt’s lofty 


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 31 


flights, “ It was as if he were talking with the angels.” “ What- 
ever it might be likened to, it must have been obtained, to 
use Milton’s words, “ by devout prayer to that eternal Spirit 
who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends 
out his seraphim with the hallowed fire of His altar to touch 
and purify the lips of whom He pleases.” 

Of Dr. De Witt’s patience under affliction we have 
already given proofs. His silent ‘submission was most 
sweet, even when the tenderest cords of his heart were 
strained to breaking. But “the greatest griefs are not the 
most verbal.” 

Dr. De Witt was a gentle and indulgent husband and father, 
and a kind andconstant friend. He-was faithful and steadfast 
in all his affections and duties, and had not the least love for 
change. He was simple in his habits: an early riser, and 
strictly temperate—-almost to abstemiousness, in eating and 
drinking. Though he did not forbid the use of wine, and would 
think it a transgression of charity to judge another man’s con- 
science by his own, yet he was a consistent exemplar of tem- 
perance and moderation in all things. Truly he acted out St. 
Paul's rule, “Let not then thy good be evil spoken of; 
for the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but 
righteousness, and peace and joy in the Holy: Ghost.” 
And it was this consistency that produced the respect 
of which Dr. Adams spoke when, in his funeral address, 
he said during the sixty-three years of Dr. De Witt’s min- 
isterial life no one had ever breathed a word against him. 
But even had it been possible for some vain censor to have 






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‘ADDRESS OF THE REV. DR. VERMILYE. 


THE present is not the time for anything like a full and dis- 
criminating account of the life and characteristics of our de- 
parted father and friend. This scene is one of sorrow, and the 
hour is sacred to tenderness and sympathy. A future occasion 
has been assigned for a funeral sermon, when those details will 
be appropriate which are necessary to a likeness that may in 
some measure set forth his goodness, which was his crowning 
_ greatness, and be recognized as a fair delineation of the Chris- 
tian, the preacher, and the man. Our communion now is with 
death and the grave. 

How mysterious a thing, Christian friends, is DEATH. Life, 
it is true, in all its various forms, is to us an inexplicable mys- 
tery. How and what it is that gives health and motion to the 
body: with which our thoughts and sensibilities and desires 
are connected ; which gives the consciouSness of being to our- 
selves and expression to the voice and countenance, so that 
others understand our meaning and emotions,.and know that 
they are holding converse with a conscious, living thing, with — 
a mind that conceives and reciprocates ideas; the principle 
within us that performs this wonderful part, how and what 
it is, who can tell! We see and recognize, we feel and know 
its existence; but its essence is a profound mystery, and must 
so remain until we come, in a higher and more intimate sense 
than now, to “see as we are seen, and know, even as also we 
are known.” And this same mystery pervades creation: in 
the vegetable world, from the blade of grass to the stately oak ; 
in the sentient world, from the mote that glitters, almost invis- 

(35) 


36 | ADDRESS OF THE REV. DR. VERMILYE. 


ible, in the sunbeam, to Behemoth, to man, to the seraph that 
burns and praises before the throne. But wherein it lies, pre- 
cisely what it is, no human philosophy has yet defined. Truly, 
we and all about us, are “ fearfully and wonderfully made.” 
With humiliation we must confess in the midst of all man’s ac- 
quirements in the various fields of knowledge, that our philoso- 
phy is here of small account. Since our own life, our essence, 
the thing nearest ourselves, our real selves, the recipient of 
outward impressions, the possessor of this knowledge, the agent 
in all our acts, is the thing of all others perhaps we least com- 
prehend. 

And death is alike mysterious. So far as human beings are 
concerned, it appears to our observation to be the entire extinc- 
tion of life, so that inert, senseless, decaying matter alone remains. 
Some strange agency has been at work; and all signs of sensa- 
tion, thought, recognition of outward things, power to exert 
limb or muscle, to act or to feel, so far as we can discover, have 
vanished as in a moment, and nothing remains before our sight, 
nothing responds to our touch but a cold and marble body—-a 
mere material, inanimate substance. The bloom and beauty of 
youth fades away like the withering flower; the vigor of man- 
hood is all relaxed; and the aged form, that has endured the 
buffetings of many years, like some grand tower overthrown, 
lies broken and prostrate on the earth. What has happened ? 
Where is that intelligent mind, that life that just now animated 
them? What was that principle and what means this death ? 
We wonder; we speculate; we are bowed down in woe over 
our loss, and in humiliation and shame at the weakness of our 
powers, and confess that the wisdom of man at its best state is 
altogether vanity. But a voice comes from the eternal throne 
to arrest our attention, and light beams from the sacred Word 





ADDRESS OF THE REV. DR. VERMILYE. 7 


to instruct and guide us. We read at the beginning, and as the 
crown and consummation of God’s creating work, that “the 
Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed 
into his nostrils the breath of lifeyand man became a living soul.” 
And again, that at death “the dust returns to the earth as it 
was, and the spirit ascends unto God who gave it.” Thus we 
learn the origin and destination of what we see, but cannot by 
reason explain. Two distinct things compose our being. We 
stand related both to earth and to heaven; both-to matter that 
decays, and spirit that is uncompounded and immortal. We are 
formed of a soul and, of a body, now joined in most intimate 
union, and so fitted for this present sphere and the duties it re- 
quires, but to be separated by death. The body was perfectly 
formed of the dust, and was a finished existence before the spirit 
was breathed into it ; and that spirit made man “a living soul.” 
Life is its essence; it was made a living being, and by its very 
constitution must live on and live forever, unless the fiat that 
brought it forth might remand it back again, of which we have 
no intimation nor fear. Death hath no dominion over it, except 
to set it free again from the body; when yet a distinct entity, it 
ascends to its original and source, to God who gave it. No eye 
can detect it,no hand can seize it when it quits its tenement, and 
that strange inanition succeeds. But its living existence has 
been proved by all its operations that have been subjected to 
our notice ; and that it is manifestly distinct from matter, separ- 
able, and now separated from the body, appears in that the body 
is still perfect in all its parts; and needs only the return of the 
animating principle to stand up again and walk forth, and per- 
form. all the functions of a living being as fully as before. Nat- 
ural death, then, so repugnant to our feelings, is, indeed, the pen- 
alty of man’s first disobedience, and so a terrible thing ; but in 


38 ADDRESS OF THE REV. DR. VERMILYE. 


its action it is simply the separation of the original constituents 
of man’s being, that each may return to its primal source. -: 
But these dear companions of time are not to be forever parted. 
There is ineffable sweetness, no doubt, in the thought that the 
mind and heart, the soul which acts, with which we held our dear 
communings, was not mere matter that goes down to the earth 
and is lost; that it did not cease to be when we ceased to obtain 
recognition from it; that the dream of the materialist is not to be | 
realized either in-regard to ourselves or those we have loved. But 
the consolation is greatly enhanced when we know that even the 
bodily form shall not perish. There will be an “ Anastasis;” a 
standing up again, as the Scriptures assure us, a rehabilitating of 
the earthly into a spiritual body at the resurrection at the-last day. 
There is to be a grand movement among the tombs; a great 
breaking up of the grave-yards of all generations; a grand assem- 
blage of Adam’s race of all ages and climes; a blessed reunion of 
Christ’s chosen in the kingdom of our Father. The “ corruptible 
shall put on incorruption; the mortal shall be clothed with immor- 


Led 


tality.” Even the dust of saints is precious; and amidst all the ex- 
posure and vicissitudes of time and earth, it sleeps in the careful 
charge of Jesus, the resurrection and the life, who will bring it 
forth again made like unto His own glorified body. The heath- 
ens disposed of their dead in hopeless sorrow; the Christian 
lays away his loved ones as precious treasures, which not only 
ne, but Jesus loves; and in the all-supporting confidence that | 
they will not be lost. The earth shall give up the dead that is 
in it; and the sea shall give up the dead in it; and there will 
be a happy and unending union beyond the boundaries of time, 
in a world that knows no separation and no change but from 
glory to glory. 

And still farther to enforce our loving faith in these great reve- 





ADDRESS OF THE REV. DR. VERMILYE. 39 


lations, we are told that, though the body is laid in the grave to 
await the resurrection morning, the soul, meanwhile, all of us 
that thinks and can enjoy, immediately ascends to God who gave 
it. “To depart,’ Paul knew was to “be with Christ.” ‘ To- 
day,” said the dying Saviour to the penitent at his side, “ to-day 
shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.’’ Where Jesus is, there His 
saints will be; and there they will be at the moment of their de- 
parture. It is a gloomy thought, and not at all countenanced 
as, | think, in Scripture, that the souls even of the righteous are 
to sleep away the ages in unconsciousness until Christ’s second 
coming ; or that they are, until that period, in some separate 
place enjoyinga limited degree of happiness, away from the 
blissful vision of God and the Lamb. Where Christ is, there 
saints will be instantly on their departure. And He declared, 
“T ascend to my Father and your Father; my God and your 
God.” Oh! what a thought is this. We look upon that form, 
_and think only of that as the result of the change it has under- 
gone. But its partner, the living soul, was far away among the 
blessed, ere yet the body was cold in death; and it has experi- 
enced a transition of feeling from darkness to light, from faith to 
vision, and boundless joy, as well as of condition, of which we 
can yet form no adequate conception. 


“ Oh, change ! oh, wondrous change! 
Burst are the prison doors ! 
This moment here; so low, 
So agonized¥ and now 
Beyond the stars.” 


Need I say to you, my bereaved friends, “Comfort one another 
with these words.” Your departed father has been spared toa 
good old age, and has been now taken without protracted sick- 


40 ADDRESS OF THE REV. DR. VERMILYE. 


ness, in the full possession of his faculties, in the exercise of a 

Christian hope, intelligent and strong, knowing whom he had 

believed, and resigning himself to his Saviour’s hands without 

misgiving or fear. He dies in the home made dear to him by 

the tender associations of many years, and amidst the benedic- 

tions of the wise and good, leaving a name that will remain to 

you as a most precious legacy; and leaving to the Church of 

Christ the record of a pure and unblameable conversation to 

guide believers in their walk of faith, and an example of holy 

living and good works for the imitation of future pastors. With. 
such sentiments shall we commit these mortal remains to their 

kindred earth—‘ Dust to dust, ashes to ashes,” in the assurance 

of a joyful resurrection. They will be Christ’s precious care, 

and He will bring them forth in new beauty at His coming. 

Farewell, beloved father, colleague, pastor, friend! for a short 

space, until we meet again. Oh! may we meet upon the shores of 

life. Sleep sweetly ; we know you will sleep safely. Take rest, frail 

body, from the toils of life in the “ house appointed for all liv- - 
ing,” until the trumpet shall sound, and the dead in Christ shall 

rise first, and all earth’s children who sleep in the dust, and they 

who shall then be alive and remain, shall hear the summons and 

join the mighty throng that shall move onward in solemn array 

to the judgment-seat. There, thou redeemed soul and risen 

body, perfect man again, the purchase of Jesus’ blood, shalt be 

justified forever, and arrayed in the white robe, the righteous- 

ness of saints shalt stand amidst the waving palms and the melo- 

dious harpings of the blessed, in the New Jerusalem above. 
Till then, beloved father, colleague, pastor, friend, farewell ! 





Pontos OF THE REV. DR.“ADAMS. 


* DEAR Doctor DE Witt!” I venture to say that these 
were the first words which fell from the lips of many in this city 
when they heard of the death of this venerated servant of God. 
“Dear Doctor De Witt!” Such words of themselves indicate 
the place which he held in all our hearts, and the qualities of his 
character which elicited a true, trustful, and unqualified affection. 
How good, and kind, and catholic he was! 

Good men there are, as we all know, whose goodness is asso- 
ciated with mixed and ambiguous qualities. From your general 
estimate you are forced to make many subtractions and abate- 
ments. You work over them as at an algebraic equation, a plus 
quantity here and a minus quantity there; and a final result is — 
a most cautious judgment. “A faithful brother, as I suppose.” 
(1 Peter 5:12.). Not thus was it with him whose loss we all 
deplore. His character and life were distinguished by wonder- 
ful simplicity ; like a granite shaft, which your eye takes in at 
a glance. Did you ever hear one utter a word of suspicion or 
distrust concerning him? There was no reserve or qualification 
as to the regard in which he was held in the community, be- 
cause there was nothing complex or dubious in the man himself. 

Very tender was the feeling cherished toward him as a father 
in this city. Disabled by age and infirmities for years past, from 
active service in his profession; bereaved of child and wife; 
thrown, as it were, into an eddy, retired and lonely, waiting for 
his great change to come, what a hold he had on the love and 
respect of thousands! His form and gait and manners were 
very familiar to all in our streets. While many remembered the 

(41) 


42 ADDRESS OF THE REV. DR. ADAMS. 


fervor of his eloquence as a preacher, and the tenderness of his 
ministrations as a pastor, perhaps he was never more useful than 
at that very period when, in common with others spared to old 
age, he may have thought that his usefulness was ended. The 
aged are useful simply by being good and aged. They are the 
objects of respect and gratitude and veneration. Nota citizen 
passes them in the street, or pays them the slightest tribute of 
civility, who is not made better himself by the act. In this way 
Dr. De Witt was a blessing to the community long after he had 
ceased from the persuasions of the pulpit. That dreamy abstract- 
edness in which he walked along through crowded thorough- 
fares, slow and sedate, as if his heart were away with the angels; 
that calm, smiling waiting in which he sat looking for the end, 
what a sermon it was, to all who saw him, on the reality of Chris- | 
tian faith and hope! 

“ Almost home!” were the first words with which he greeted 
me, as I entered his room a few days before he died. Whata 
glorious sunset it was, after a long and useful and honored life. 
I was reminded by the scene of Mr. Standfast as he went down 
to the river. ‘“ Now there was a great calm at that time in the 
river; wherefore, Mr. Standfast, when he was about half way in, 
stood a while, and talked with his companions that had waited 
upon him thither. And he said, This river has been a terror to 
many ; yea, the thoughts of it also have often frightened me; 
but now, methinks, I stand easy; my foot is fixed upon_that on 
which the feet of the priests that bare the ark of me 
stood while Israel went over Jordan. I see myself now at the 
end of my journey; my toilsome days are ended. I have for- 
merly lived by faith ; but now I go where I shall live by sight, 
and shall be with Him in whose company I delight myself. His 
name has been to me sweeter than all perfumes. His voice has 


* 





ADDRESS. OF THE :REV. DR. TYNG. 43 


been to me most sweet; and His countenance I have more de- 
sired than they that have most desired the light of the sun.” * 

My words are few; but always shall I be grateful that I was 
permitted to see and know that “good, great man.” His friend- 
ship and example and manner of life, in its meridian and at the 
going down of the sun, I shall ever prize as amongst the great- 
est of blessings. . 

In particular excellences he may have had his equals and supe- 
riors; but in that rare combination of qualities which made him 
what he was, he stood unrivalled. “ Whose faith follow consid- 
ering the end of his conversation.” 


ADDRESS OF THE REV. DR. TYNG. 


THE historical, social, and personal character of our vener- 
ated friend, have been presented with great clearness and pro- 
priety. There would seem to be but little remaining to be said. 
And yet there is a very important aspect of the personal history 
of Dr. De Witt, as it has been displayed before the surrounding 
churches of the Lord, which ought by no means to be neglected 
or forgotten. It was his thoroughly Evangelical character. 
Whether he were met in the private associations of kindred 
friend gtr in the various public exercises of his ministry, per- 
haps the most prominent and habitual trait displayed in him 
was, that he was eminently a disciple and a preacher of the glo- 
rious Saviour of men. 

In his public ministry, his peculiar trait was the simplicity of 


* Pilgrim’s Progress, Part II., p. 417. 


44 -“ADDRESS OF THE REV. DR. TYNG. 


his evangelical teaching. From every quarter of illustration, 
whether in the Old Testament or the New, in the history of the 
Gospels or the social and didactic teaching of the Epistles, he 
never failed to find the one great centre of all, or to lead his hear-_ 
ers to the One Gracious Saviour, in whom the life and thought 
of all must be found. He fully believed that there was salvation 
in none other. And he was so truly and sincerely, at home, and 
living in Him, that every train of thought seemed naturally to 
flow to Him and around Him. It was this great element of his 
ministry which maintained the attractiveness of his public teach- 
ing so completely to the close of his life, and kept his work still 
alive, when in the passage of years many others fade and die- 

He loved the great distinguishing facts of a Saviour’s history 
and work, in which all true servants of the Lord are always 
united and at home. He felt that there was a divine cover- 
ing of redeeming love, which was the abiding canopy over all 
churches and families of the disciples of Jesus, far more impor- 
tant than any of the separate distinctions which it covered, or 
the forms of faith which had grown up under its shadow. And 
while not indifferent to these, he especially loved and delighted 
to consider and to present that to the view of all. 

This one distinguishing peculiarity marked his whole ministry. 
| have had the pleasure of knowing him well and of seeing him 
often in many years past. And I was habitually attracted by 
this growing evangelical character of his conversation and his 
tastes. This constituted in him, as it must always in a true 
lover of Jesus, as he grows old in his Master’s work, an adyanc- 
ing separation from other thoughts and motives, and a growing 
gentleness of spirit and tenderness of manner towards all. 

Thus have we seen this venerable father in the church, rising 
as a living temple, more prepared for the indwelling of his Lord, 





ADDRESS OF THE REV. DR. TYNG. AS 


and more manifest and instructive to those who have gratefully 
watched his gradual but sure advance. His Christianity out- 
grew his church. His love for Christ reached far beyond any 
local or individual limits among men. And we are here with a 
common affection and respect to commemorate his goodness and 
his influence, “‘as such an one as Paul the Aged,” in whom were 
abiding these three, “ Faith, Hope, and Love,’ and in whose 
whole character “the greater of all was love,” now failing not 
forevermore. 











eee a Ea ie VEO) IN 


DELIVERED IN 


THE MIDDLE DUTCH CHURCH, OCTOBER 25, 1874, 
AND AFTERWARDS REPEATED IN 
THE SOUTH REFORMED CHURCH, NOV. 8rx, AND ALSO IN THE PRESBYTE- 


RIAN CHURCH, FIFTH AVENUE AND 197rm STREET, NOV. 297Tx. 


BY 


REv. TALBOT W. CHAMBERS, D.D. 


SERMON BY THE REV. DR. CHAMBERS. 


THE GUILELESS ISRAELITE. 
“Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile.”—JNo. i. 47. 


“THE memory of the just is blessed,” or as a recent critic 
more exactly renders the last word, “is a blessing.” The life of 
. a just man is a fountain of good to all within his reach. His 
words and deeds, his example, his spirit, his whole influence, 
conscious and unconscious, are like dew upon the mown grass. 
But this does not cease’ when he dies. Often, on the contrary, it 
is increased. ‘The course is completed, and there is no room for 
any unseemly development. Then the good man’s life is seen as 
a rounded whole, and as such is embalmed in the grateful recol- 
lections of all who knew him. It operates as a perpetual stimu- 
lus to a similar career. How many children and children’s 
children have been restrained from evil courses, or cheered in 
the performance of trying duties, by the memory of an eminent- 
ly upright ancestor! How many public men in all parts of our 
land during three generations have been elevated and guided by 
the memory of the father of his country? How wide-spread and 
happy, alike in the Jewish Church and in the Christian, has been 
the influence of such names as those of Abraham, and Joseph, 
and Moses, and David, and Daniel? Few men, or none now, are 
or can be so extensively known as these, but even in circles 
comparatively narrow or obscure, there are names which tower 
above the ordinary level, and by their stainless integrity rebuke 
all wrong doing and stimulate to a holy life. 

In all such cases, it is at once a privilege and a duty to pre- 


serve and cherish the memory of departed worth. This duty is 
(51) 


52 SERMON BY THE REV. DR. CHAMBERS. 


due not to these heroes of faith, but to ourselves. To the spirits 
of just men made perfect, discourses and eulogies, or even mon- 
uments and statues of the highest art, are of no account. To 
them in the abodes of bliss, 


«Earth looks so little and so low,”’ 


that its most emphatic expressions of admiration are scarce 
worthy of a single thought. But for our own sake, to encourage 


us in the Christian conflict, to awaken our ardor for higher at- . 


tainments, to counteract the depressing influence of so many less 
worthy examples, we need to bring up distinctly and fully to 


mind the memory of every man of distinguished position of © 


whom it may be said, as Luke says of Joseph of Arimathea, “he 
was a good man and a just.”’ From such a flaming torch, many 
a lesser light will be kindled. From such a record of intellectual 
and moral worth, many a youth will derive a new impulse to no- 
bler aims and a higher life. It is with a firm conviction of this 
truth that I now essay to speak of the good man who finished 
his course during the Spring of the present year, and who in the 
judgment of all who knew him, wonderfully resembled the early 
disciple of whom our Lord said, “‘ Behold an Israelite indeed, in 
whom is no guile.” The incidents of his life are easily recounted. 


He was born September 13, 1791, in Kingston, Ulster Co., . 


N. Y., where his ancestors had been settled for several genera- 
tions, the founder of the family having come from Holland in the 
year 1655. After completing his preparatory studies at the 
Kingston Academy, he was entered at Union College, where he 
was graduated in 1808, having then not quite completed his sev- 
-enteenth year. He studied theology under Drs. Brodhead, 
Freligh, and Livingston, and was one of the first two graduates 
from the seminary at New Brunswick, in 1812. The same year 


SERMON BY THE REV. DR. CHAMBERS. 53 


he was licensed to preach by the Classis of New Brunswick, and 
was settled over the united congregations of Hackensack and 
Hopewell, Dutchess Co., N. Y. Here he labored with growing 
acceptance until September, 1827, when he became one of the 
collegiate pastors, and so continued until his death, on the 18th 
of May last. , 

I propose to speak of our revered friend in three points of 
view—as aman, a Christian, and a minister of the Gospel. 


Pee fal At 


Nature endowed ,;him with a large and well- proportioned 
frame, a robust constitution, and a face at once dignified and ex- 
pressive, the upper part of which bore a striking resemblance to 
that of the first Emperor Napoleon—a resemblance remarked 
not only in this country, but also in Holland during his visit 
to the Continent in the year 1846. His expansive forehead, 
bright eyes, well-shaped nose, full mouth, and rounded chin, 
were no faint index of what dwelt within, and attracted respect 
and confidence in advance. The prevailing feature of his charac- 
ter was the one indicated in the text, a guileless simplicity which 
never varied, from his extreme youth even to old age. It ap- - 
peared in everything; in the quiet and regular habits in regard 
to food and sleep, which doubtless had much to do with the al- 
most unbroken health he enjoyed through life; in the manage- 
ment of his household; in conversation; in preaching ; in inter- 
course with men of every class. The idea of doing anything by 
indirection, seems never to have occurred to him—-much less of 
pretending to be or to do anything different from the actual fact. 
Sometimes this trait was carried to an extreme, and showed 
itself in entire absence of mind, some amusing instances of which 


54 SERMON BY THE REV. DR. CHAMBERS. 


he was accustomed at times to relate. It is said among the 


people of his first pastoral charge, that when going to visit them, 


he would take a book in hand, and not unfrequently the horse 
would stop at some familiar place, while his rider, all unconscious 
of the fact, would remain absorbed in his volume, until aroused 


by some third party. This, and similar eccentricities, some of — 


which attended him through life, were in no degree the result 
of affectation (not a trace of which was ever seen in him), but 
sprang from the entire artlessness of his nature. This artless- 
ness, however, was at the farthest possible remove from silliness 
or absurdity. Good sense marked all his deportment in common 
life. This was greatly aided by the influence of his wife, to 
whom he was tenderly attached, and whom he always consider- 
ed by far the best of the earthly gifts of his Heavenly Father. 
She was a helpmeet to him in the truest sense of that term, 
studying his comfort, guarding his time, and furnishing the 
needful social link between the severe contemplative student and 
the outside world. Her pleasant vivacity sent a perpetual ripple 
of sunshine through his home, and her assiduous attention re- 
lieved him of many a household care. <As it was with the good 
woman in the Proverbs, “ The heart of the husband safely trusted 
in her, and she did him good and not evil all the days of her life.” 
And it was doubtless owing much to her wise and skillful manage- 


ment that he was never embarrassed by the narrow circumstances _ 


which so often in our day try the faith and patience of ministers. 
Unworldly as he was, and totally free from the most sordid of all 
vices, he was always able to maintain his household reputably, 
and to dispense a graceful and cordial hospitality, for “like the 
house of Stephanas at Corinth,” he addicted himself to the 
ministry of the saints, and also to make a comfortable provision 
for his declining years. Nor was this attained at the sacrifice of 


& 





SERMON BY THE REV. DR. CHAMBERS. 55 


those habits of charity which one looks for in the man, a part of 
whose official business it is to stimulate liberal giving in others. 
His precept and his example corresponded. Utterly without skill 
in personal solicitation, he yet knew how to enforce witha master’s 
hand the Saviour’s words, “Freely ye have received, freely 
-give;”’ and as he preached, so he practiced, never denying him- 
self the luxury of charity, but giving liberally all his life, and es- 
pecially and increasingly in his latter years. His gifts, however, | 
were always unostentatious—the left hand not knowing what the 
right hand did. 

_ He was naturally a man of warm heart and kindly feeling, do 
mestic in his tastes, and never happier than when in the bosom 
of his family, yet cherishing wide sympathies with his kind, and 
especially with the children of sorrow. And this, I think, had 
much to do with his extreme inoffensiveness in speech and act. 
He would not willingly wound the feelings of anyone, even an 
opponent. He could say sharp things, as e. g., once in reference 
to a very fluent but empty declaimer, he remarked, “ Brother C. 
can say more with less effort of body or mind than any person I 
know,” or again, of anambitious but ineffective speaker, “ Brother 
F. always seems to be aiming at something high, but never quite 
succeeds in reaching it.” But such remarks were rare. In the 
general, not only did he open his mouth with wisdom, but in his 
tongue was the law of kindness. In social intercourse he was 
-easy and cheerful, and without pretending to be a wit, often 
enlivened conversation with a well-told and amusing incident. . 
One such I remember in the case of a minister more at home in 
sacred than in secular literature, who prefaced the quotation of 
Shakespeare’s well-known lines, “The quality of mercy is not 
strained,” etc., with the words, “ As our sweet Christian poet, 
Cowper, says.”’ 


50 SERMON BY THE REV. DR. CHAMBERS. 


Dr. De Witt’s mind was both reflective and inquiring, and had 
this type from a very early period. The Hon. A. B. Hasbrouck, 
of St. Remy, N. Y., who was a fellow student with him at the 
Kingston Academy, says that he was by far the best scholar in the 
institution, that he took little interest or share in boyish sports, 
but was generally seen with a book in his hand, and that in con- 
sequence of this devotion to study, he received the nickname of 
Sir Isaac Newton. What Dr. Hasbrouck says, of course needs 
no confirmation, yet it is worth observing that the late Mrs. 
Westbrook, widow of the Rev. Dr. C. D. Westbrook, made the 
same statements during her life-time. In this case the child was 
father to the man, for all his life he was an omnivorous reader, 
and yet not a careless one, for his marvelous memory allowed 
little that he once knew ever to escape him. What he thus ac- 
quired, he assimilated in a way peculiar to himself. Every utter- 
ance bore his own image and superscription. The substance and 
direction of his thoughts, the links of their connection, and the 
words in which they were clothed, all showed the working of an 
independent and original mind. His power of self-concentration, 
of prolonged and patient thought, of reproductive imagination, 
of intense emotion, and of various and incisive speech, would 
have given him eminence in any profession and in any sphere. 
But he does not seem ever to have contemplated any other call- 
ing than that of which he was such a distinguished ornament. 
This was owing: to the gifts of grace superadded to those of na- 
ture,—which leads me to speak of 


UL. OT BOE CR Sere 


From the character of his Dutch and Huguenot parentage, it 
is quite certain that he enjoyed the advantages of a careful and 
religious education. One interesting feature of this early train- 





SERMON BY THE REV. DR. CHAMBERS. 57. 


ing is derived from the statement of a contemporary of his, a 
lady who died during the present year at the venerable age of 
ninety. She related that one afternoon when he was a small 
boy, his mother, on going out of the house, put him on a chair in 
the middle of the room, and told him to remain there till she re- 
turned. She was away longer than she anticipated, and in the 
meantime, an old colored woman began to scrub the floor. 
When she reached the chair where the boy sat, she wanted him 
to move, but he would not. She then attempted to move him 
herself, but he made such a time about it that she had to give 
up. He said that his mother had placed him there and told him 
to remain, and he meant to mind his mother. When she re- 
turned, she found him where she had left him, and the floor was 
all scrubbed except where he sat. 

This little incident furnishes the key to the remarkable stabili- 
ty of character which he exhibited through a long life. Maternal 
fidelity inwrought in his mind from its earliest years the idea of 
duty as something sacred and inviolable. It might at times be a 
question whether a given course was right, but whether if right 
it ought to be followed, was no question at all. Moral obliga- 
tion never seemed to be a fetter, and he could truthfully adopt 
the fine stanza in Wordsworth’s “ Ode to Duty:” 

“Stern lawgiver! yet Thou dost wear 
The Godhead’s most benignant grace ; 
Nor know we anything so fair 
As in the smile upon thy face ; 
Flowers laugh before Thee on their beds ; 
And fragrance in Thy footing treads ; 


Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong; : 
And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong.” 


The sweet influences of his happy and well-ordered home seem 
to have concurred with his studious and contemplative habits, 


58 SERMON BY THE REV. DR. CHAMBERS. 


in warding off vicious tastes and associations, and thus preserv- 
ing him from the snares which so often beset the young while 
at school, and especially when sent off to college. In truth, he 
gained rather than lost spiritually by going to Schenectady. For 
it was during his residence there that his attention was first seri- 
ously turned to the great question of his personal relation to 
God. Still nothing decisive occurred until after his return to 
Kingston, where he sat under the ministry of the late Dr. John 


Gosman, whom, as he once told me, he regarded. as his spiritual - 


father. Here, at the close of the year 1808, he gave his heart to 
the Saviour, and entered into the full communion of the church. 
The Kingston pastor had the pleasure of receiving many seals 
of his long and able ministry ; but one may well doubt whether 
all these combined would outweigh in usefulness and importance 
the conversion of the college graduate whom he was the means 
of leading directly to Christ. The change wrought upon his 
mind seems to have been not sudden, but gradual, what the old 
divines call a thorough law work done upon the soul, uprooting 
all indifference and vain confidence, followed by a cordial accept- 
ance of the saving mercy offered in the Gospel. At all events 
it never needed to be done over. Sixty-six years of long and 
varied experience saw no change in the character then formed, 
save in the way of a natural and progressive development, liken- 
ed in Scripture to the light of the dawn brightening more and 
more unto the perfect day (Prov. iv. 18). The piety of our de- 
parted father was even in its beginning anything but superficial 
or inconsiderate. It was deep-rooted and intelligent, swaying 
the whole man, and giving tone and direction to all else that he 
was and did. It rested upon the spiritual. apprehension of the 
truth as it is in Jesus, and stood not in the wisdom of men, but 
the power of God. 





SERMON BY THE REV. DR. CHAMBERS. 59 


Its interior exercises, however, are to be inferred rather than 
positively asserted, for he had an invincible repugnance to mak- 
ing any self-disclosure on the matter. I remember to have made 
two attempts to engage him in confidential conversation on the 
subject of his own spiritual experiences, simply with the view of 
learning something for my own benefit as to the secret of his 
maintenance of such a close walk with God; but each utterly 
failed. He courteously but firmly declined, saying that all such 
matters ought to be between the soul and God. The circum-- 
stance reminds one of the story told by Richard Baxter of his 
dealing with Sir Matthew Hale. At one time Baxter was a near 
neighbor to the eminent judge, and often had long and familiar 
conversations with him on serious subjects. .In reviewing this 
intercourse the good man says: “I was afraid lest he had been 
too little for the practical part of religion, as to the working of 
the soul toward God, in prayer, meditation, etc.; because he sel- 
dom spake to me of such subjects, nor of practical books, nor of 
sermons, but was still speaking of philosophy, or of spirits, souls, 
the future state and the nature of God. But at last I understood 
that his averseness to hypocrisy made him purposely conceal the 
most of such of his practical thoughts and works, as the world 
now findeth by his ‘ Contemplations’ and other writings.”’ There 
seems little reason to doubt that much of the same feeling lay at 
the bottom of Dr. De Witt’s reticence. He greatly disliked 
anything like an ostentatious religiousness, and naturally feared 
lest even in the most confidential conversation he might be led 
unconsciously to overstate or misstate the exact truth. 

But while we lack any statement in his own words of his spirit- 
ual experiences, there is quite enough in the tenor of his daily 
life to indicate what they were. His humility was profound and 
unaffected. Indeed, he was clothed with it like a garment. It 


60 SERMON BY THE REV. DR. CHAMBERS. 


was not that mock grace which deals in self-disparagement, and 
cunningly seeks to attract praise by deprecating it. On the con- 
trary, it taught him the difficult art of forgetting himself. He 
never sought a high place, but always seemed content to take 
the lowest. He was completely exempt from the jealousy of 
superior talent or reputation, and never showed the least uneasi- 
ness at hearing the praises of even much younger men: “In 
honor preferring one another,” was a precept exemplified in all 
his life—increasing rather than declining as years advanced. 
Even when burdened with honors, and his name a household 
word for every kind of Christian and ministerial excellence, he 
never, so far as others could see, forgot that he was a sinner 
saved by grace, and had nothing which he had not received. 
He assumed nothing, he arrogated nothing, but bore himself 
with all lowliness and meekness. His religion throughout was of 
the old-fashioned type—serious, earnest, and devout ; that of one 
slain by the law and revived by grace. It did not have the per- 
petual sunshine which is not unfrequently witnessed in believers 
of this generation. Notwithstanding the unusual purity and 
blamelessness of his outward life, there seemed to be too deep a 
sense of the sinfulness of sin, too thorough a conviction. of the 
extent of human depravity, for him to be always in the conscious 
enjoyment of the Divine favor. Yet he was not a gloomy Chris- 
tian. Far from it. The serenity of his mind, his freedom from 
earthly strifes and ambitions, his taste for home-bred delights, 
his habitual cheerfulness in society, his relish for an innocent 
jest, all bore witness that, in his case, wisdom’s ways were ways 
of pleasantness, and all her paths peace. Nor was this interfered 
with by the fact that he, in common with all God’s children, was 
sometimes called to pass through sore trial. Of eight children he 
survived all but two; and of those who preceded him to the 





SERMON BY THE REV. DR. CHAMBERS. 61 


grave, a son and a daughter were taken away in their youthful | 
prime. The shock of these successive bereavements was in- 
tensely severe, and at first heart and flesh seemed to fail. But 
soon faith resumed its wonted ascendancy, and the aged mourner 
gave an exaniple of patient and cheerful submission which was 
alike touching and instructive. Even down to old age, he was 
a living epistle of Jesus Christ, his graces ripening as his bodily 
frame decayed, and his spirit breathing already the atmosphere 
of the blessed region whither he has now gone. The precise 
aspects of his piety are not easily defined, just because it was 
not a separable portion of his character, but entered into and 
blended with the whole man, giving shape and direction to 
every speech and act. In his family, in the social circle, on a 
journey, in the haunts of business, not less than in the pulpit, or 
the Classis, or the Synod, was he known as a devout man of God. 
His goodness was not put on for the occasion, but breathed out 
naturally, like fragrance from the flower, and was felt rather than 
seen. And it was remarkably equable, not subject to fits and 
starts; not at one time standing at fever-heat, and at another 
sinking to the freezing point, but steadfast and settled, under- 
going no change save that of maturity and mellowness as years 
went on and experience became deeper and more varied. Un- 
derneath his quiet serenity there was a constant fervor which, 
I think, could have been born only from his habits of prolonged 
and intimate communion with God. It was this fervor which 
had much to do with his great success as 


Il].—THE. MINISTER OF CHRIST. 


Even the heathen Quintilian maintained that the first requisite 
of an orator is that he should bé a good man: If this be true as 


62 SERMON BY THE REV. DR. CHAMBERS. 


to speakers on secular themes, far more is it in reference to the 
pulpit. And that, not merely to secure the confidence and good 
will and sympathy of the hearers, but also to maintain in the 
preacher’s own soul that holy glow, that genuine ardor, without 
which all other gifts and acquisitions are well-nigh useless. It 
was this trait which was most characteristic of Dr. De Witt in 
the pulpit. He never stood there to exhibit his learning, or to 
play the orator, or to dazzle a crowd, or to win popular favor, 
but to proclaim that truth of which he had himself experimental 
knowledge, and which was the daily nutriment of his own spirit- 
ual life. This was so plain that it could not be mistaken. His 
whole inner and outer life concurred with his flashing eye and 
piercing tones and peculiar gesticulation, to make every hearer 
feel that here was an Israelite in whom was no guile. 

This feature shone out brightly in hfs prayers, an exercise in 
which he greatly excelled. Its peculiar characteristics were 
fullness of matter, freshness, variety, the apt use of Scripture 
language, simplicity, humility, reverence, and a sacred fervor 
which poured itself out like a rushing stream from an overflow- 
ing fountain. No two prayers were ever alike, for he no more 
copied himself than he did others. He appeared to forget the 
presence of. men, and to utter the fullness of his heart as if he 
were alone with God. It never seemed to be merely a formal 
or official duty with him, but rather a coveted opportunity of 
holding communion with his Maker and Saviour. In this holy 
unction he greatly resembled one of his predecessors, of whom 
the great Dr. Mason said that he prayed as if he were inspired. 
And surely Dr. De Witt’s style and spirit in devotion were 
always that of one “ praying in the Holy Ghost” (Jude 20). 

The same earnestness marked his preaching. He was nota 
mere essayist, or critic, or rhetorigian, or composer of homilies, 





SERMON BY THE REV. DR. CHAMBERS. 63 


but an ambassador for Christ, pleading and pressing the Saviour’s 
claims. He fulfilled to the letter his own words in his introduc- 
tory discourse on becoming a collegiate minister: “We should 
preach the Gospel with affection, with an earnest and tender 
affection which shall bear its conviction to all that we feel the 
influence of what we address to them, and that we truly seek 
their good.” Nor do I think that of all the many thousands 
who, in the course of a ministry of over sixty years, heard the 
truth from his lips, there was even one who failed to experience 
just this conviction—that Thomas De Witt spoke because he 
believed, and that he preached not himself, but Christ Jesis the 
Lord. But it would be a great error to suppose that this pious 
fervor was made an excuse for incoherent thought, or vapid 
platitudes, or any other form of intellectual poverty. The re- 
verse was the case. The fruit of his reading, study, and medi- 
tation was continually apparent, and he exemplified the words 
of Ecclesiastes, “ Because the preacher was wise, he still taught 
the people knowledge.” He did not write out his discourses, 
and rarely made any notes, however brief, but none the less was 
there a thorough and adequate preparation. Huis material was 
patiently gathered and faithfully digested, his extraordinary 
memory enabling him to carry in his mind two or three distinct 
trains of thought at once without confusion or distraction. He 
habitually pursued the old-fashioned plan of formally stating the 
divisions of his subject, but the development of these divisions 
was anything but formal or common-place. His audience heard 
a piece of close dialectics; or a fine play of the imagination ; or 
a felicitous use of Scripture; or a chapter of genuine religious 
experience ; or a glowing appeal to the heart ; all delivered with 
- such an abandon of manner, as showed the utter absorption of the 
speaker in his theme. He was often remarkably happy in the 


64 SERMON BY THE REV. DR. CHAMBERS. 


selection of texts, as ¢. g.. when preaching before the Young 
Men’s Christian Association of the 29th St. Church, he spoke 
from the statement concerning Saul: “ And there went with him 
a band of men whose hearts God had touched” (1 Sam. x. 26); or 
on a communion day when taking the querulous complaint of 
the Pharisees and Scribes (Luke xv. 2), and turning it into a just 
expression of our Lord’s loving condescension, he pointed down 
to the table spread with the elements, and said, “ This man re- 
ceiveth sinners and eateth with them.” Wis voice was resonant 
and sweet, filling with ease the largest building, and its modula- 
tions were admirably adapted to express the speaker’s varied 
emotions. His whole matter and manner, his utterance, feeling, 
and character, gave him, during the greater part of his minis- 
terial career, a wide popularity, the more noteworthy because it 
was the same in town and in country. In Dutchess Co., N. Y., 
and in Somerset Co., N. J., plain people eagerly thronged the 
place where he preached, while the old Middle Church in Nas- 
sau St., at that time the largest place of worship in New York, 
was often crowded to its utmost capacity by the most cultivated 
portion of our population. His eloquence was of that simple, 
natural kind which takes hold of the broad features of our com- 
mon humanity, which reaches from the heart to the heart, and, 
therefore, has equal power over the rude and the refined. His 
style had a peculiarity which I am at a loss to describe accu- 
rately—an inversion of the natural order of the sentence, a habit 
of making adjectives and other qualifying epithets follow instead 
of preceding the word to which they referred. But this pecu- 
liarity of his speech (for it is hardly discernible in his writings) 
never interfered with its clearness and precision. It gave an 
additional charm in the ears of the educated, while as to’others 
it was true of him, as it was of his Master, that “the common 


a ee ee a ee 





» 
i a ee 


—— S 


<< |. es 


_—. 


ee 


SERMON BY THE REV. DR. CHAMBERS. 65 


people heard him gladly.” Nor was this because they witnessed 
his best efforts “ with the feeling rather of looking at a fine pic- 
ture than of being confronted by a faithful mirror.” They were 
not allowed to do that. He did not deal in vague generalities, 
but discriminated and individualized human character so as to 
bring the truth home to the reason and conscience with a direct 
personal application. He had a rare faculty of detecting and 
laying bare the deceitfulness and perversities of the heart, of 
unfolding the subterfuges of impenitence and unbelief, and espe- 
cially of elucidating the distinguishing marks of a true and a 
false religious experience. His discourses on these topics were 
not like the moon walking in brightness—beautiful, indeed, but 
cold and powerless-—but rather like the beams of a tropical sun, 
searching the depths of the soul and bringing to consciousness 
_all its varied deceits and disorders. How often in his hands did 
the Word prove itself sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing 
even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints 
and marrow, and a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the © 
heart! Yet such was the manifest integrity and yearning affec- 
tion of the preacher, that men submitted willingly to his unspar- 
ing analysis, and rejoiced in the preaching which showed them 
themselves as they were in the sight of God. 

But excellent as Dr. De Witt was in the pulpit, he was scarce- 
ly less so out of it. His pastoral fidelity was remarkable. Al- 
though, as we have seen, very fond of reading and meditation, 
and therefore under a sore temptation to shut himself up in his 
library, he was very diligent, both while in a country charge and 
during his long service in this city, in visiting the families of his 
people. Here his ready and retentive memory did him good 
service, for al] the children and grand-children whom he had 
once seen he knew, and could mention by name; and the familiar 


66 SERMON BY THE REV. DR. CHAMBERS. 


acquaintance thus acquired and preserved, not only aided him in 
his studies of human nature and furnished material for the delin- 
eation of character, but greatly increased the acceptableness and 
success of his pulpit ministrations. The old and young learned 
to love as well as revere him, and even the truth gained fresh 
force as it was felt to come from loving lips and an affectionate 
heart. In scenes of sickness or sorrow, at the bed-side of the 
dying, or in the home of bereavement, he was especially wel- 
come, his wondrous gifts in prayer enabling him to carry every 
- bruised spirit into the immediate presence of the Saviour, while his 
deep sympathies, his complete command of the Scriptures, and his 
profound study of the ways of God with men, fitted him to sug- 
gest appropriate and effective consolations. On funeral occa- 
sions he was unequal, sometimes apparently being hampered by 


accidental circumstances, either in his physical condition or in 


the outward surroundings. But at others, every fetter was drop- 
ped, and he soared like an eagle, speaking of the character and 
destiny of the righteous as if he were an angel standing in the 


sun, or uttering admonition in words of truth and soberness, - 


which fell like bolts from mid-heaven. 

Amid the varied and perplexing duties of his pastoral charge, 
he found time to fill the post of editor of a religious weekly 
paper. From 1831 to 1843, the Christian Intelligencer, the organ 
of the denomination, was conducted by an association of minis- 
ters. Of this association, Dr. De Witt was the chairman, and as 
such visited the office regularly, supervised the selections, and 
furnished the editorial matter. His wise management gave to 
the paper the high character for ability, dignity, courtesy, and 
candor, which, with few exceptions, it has retained to this day. 
Only those who have had experience, know what it is to unite 
editorial and pastoral labors. But severe and irksome as this 


SERMON BY THE REV. DR. CHAMBERS. 67 


service was, it was cheerfully and gratuitously rendered for the 
sake of the Church and the Church’s Head. 

He often represented his brethren in the synodical assemblies, 
and took his share in transacting the business of the Church, but 
he had no particular fondness for that kind of work, and usually 
_ left it to those whose taste or temperament inclined them to ad- 
ministrative functions. Yet he was punctilious in his attendance 
upon the Classis, and all Classical duties were carefully per- 
formed. As years passed on, his influence became overwhelm- 
ing, and he might justly have appropriated the language of Job, 
“Unto me men gave ear, and waited, and kept silence at my 
counsel. After my words they spake not again.” In the benevo- 
lent Boards of the Church, he did an excellent work, having 
been a member of one or other of them from the beginning, and 
often the President. So long as our Foreign Missionary opera- 
tions were carried on through the A. B.C. F. M., he was the 
Secretary of the Dutch Board, and conducted an extensive cor- 
respondence at home and abroad. In consequence of his fa- 
miliar acquaintance with the Dutch language and literature, 
with the persons or traditions of the fathers of our Church, and 
with the affiliated history of the times, he became a recognized 
authority on almost every question of the past, and when he 
failed to answer an inquirer, it was not of much use to seek else- 
where. At one time he intended to write the history of the 
Reformed Dutch Church in North America, and had accumu- 
lated many and valuable materials, but a severe attack of vertigo 
in 1845, occasioned, it was supposed, by poring over unwieldy 
folios and obscure manuscripts, so alarmed his friends, that the 
work was suspended and never again resumed. The loss we 
have sustained in this respect is well nigh, if not altogether, 
irreparable. His attainments in this branch of letters were rec- 


638 SERMON BY THE REV. DR. CHAMBERS. 


ognized by others than churchmen. From an early period he was" 


an esteemed member of the New York Historical Society, before 
whom he read two valuable memoirs in the years 1844 and 1848. 
For thirty years he served as one of the Vice-Presidents, and in 
the year 1870 was elected President, but growing infirmities 
induced him, after two years service, to decline a re-election. 

While he was warmly attached to his own communion, he 
breathed a most catholic’spirit toward all who hold the Head, 
and co-operated actively with every one of the leading evangeli- 
cal institutions of our time. He was for many years President of 
the American and Foreign Christian Union, and of the City Tract 
and Mission; an active manager of the American Bible Society, 
and also of the American Tract Society; a director of the Leake 
and Watts Orphan Asylum; a member of the Council of the 
University of the City of New York, and afterwards a trustee of 
Columbia College, the oldest seat of learning in the State. In 
none of these cases did he seek the position, but the position 
sought him. With characteristic humility, he shrank from 
places of prominence, but when the voice of duty was heard, 
meekly yielded his own preferences and submitted to his 
brethren. 

But his chief life-work was done in the ministry of the Gos- 
pel and in connection with this church. Here he was associated, 
first and last, with eight colleagues, with all of whom he lived in 
unbroken harmony and confidence. But I[ think his most inti- 
mate fellowship was with the late Dr. Knox, whom he nearly 
approached in age. For the first nine years of my service here, 
I had the opportunity of seeing much of the brotherly commun- 


ion of these two eminent men. Different in their nativity, their * 


training, their peculiar cifts, and the cast of their minds, they 
were knit together in the closest bonds as triends and brethren, 





SERMON BY THE REY. DR. CHAMBERS. | 69 


and their combined weight of character and influence was felt 
far and wide throughout our church and city. The life they‘led 
and the example they set are a perpetual treasure to the col- 
legiate people. For myself, I shall never forget their kindness 
to me and mine. Called in 1849 to become the associate of them 
_and the present senior pastor (Dr. T. E. Vermilye), 1 was younger, 
and far less experienced than they, and comparatively quite ob- 
scure, yet neverin word or act was this circumstance intimated to 
me, but all the consideration to which I was entitled, and a good 
deal more, was freely given at all times, thus making a fund of pleas- 
ant recollections which | shall cherish while life lasts. I distinctly 
remember that on one occasion, twenty-five years ago, as we were 
going out of the North Church, where the four had been hold- 
ing a joint service, I remarked to them that, as the youngest man, 
I expected to take the heavy end of whatever hard work was to: 
be done. “No,” said Dr. Knox, “no; you will take your equal 
share and no more.” And this both of the others at once con- | 
firmed. The idea of seeking or taking a personal advantage at 
the expense of a colleague, never seemed to occur even by 
chance to any one of these eminent men. 

Dr. De Witt was eminent for the length, the peace, and the 
purity of his career. He began his ministry in 1812, and he con- 
tinued it unbroken, save by a short visit to Europe, until the 
present year of grace. During all that period he never hada 
controversy, personal or ecclesiastical. Holding firmly by the 
historical faith of the Church, and extremely sensitive to any in- 
vasion of it from whatever quarter, he yet conducted himself, 
even in times when the air was full of charges and counter- 
charges in the matter of heresy, with such wisdom and erace 
that he never became entangled in the strife. Not because 
his position was misunderstood—not because he was an in- 


70 - SERMON BY THE REV. DR. CHAMBERS. 


different and despicable neutral—but because it ‘seemed _bet- 
ter to become him to stand for himself like a majestic column, ~ 
bearing his witness in his own way, whether men would hear or 
forbear. As for his daily and ministerial life, there is no man of 
our time who could more truthfully appropriate the words of — 
the great Apostle, “For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of 
our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with 
fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our con- 
versation in the world.”” That he thus lived was not only the 
fact, but so manifestly the fact that no one ever even dreamed of 
questioning it. At no time did the shadow of a stain rest upon 
his character. It was all of one piece, bright and unsullied, 
from beginning to end.* Happy are we, my brethren, in these 
days of darkness, when so many noble reputations have toppled 
over, and so many honored names have been sadly tarnished, 
that we can point to one which defies the tongue of malice, 
which challenges the severest scrutiny, and which from the 
earliest years, or through an active and vigorous manhood, and 
down even to the feeble and tottering steps of age, has been a 
synonym of everything that is lovely and of good report. 
Death now has put upon it the final seal, and it stands apart. 
There let it stand, not simply an ornament and an heirloom to 
this church, but a stimulus to every youth, an encouragement 
to every believer, a pattern to every Christian minister, and 
above all, an honor to that Saviour to whom our father be- 
longed, and who made him what he was. 


Let me be pardoned for one or two brief reflections. 
1. Here isa Practical Proof of the Gospel—The life which has 
been recounted before you is a verifying example of the excel- 





* Qui nihil in vita nisi laudandum, aut fecit, aut dixit, aut sensit. 





SERMON BY THE REV. DR. CHAMBERS. 71 


lence of true religion. What Thomas De Witt was in word and 
~ act during a long and active life in a conspicuous position, his 
_religion made him, and nothing else under heaven could have 
done it. Let scoffers rail, and the vain world pretend to disbe- 
lieve, but the fact remains undeniable, that such a career is not the 
product of anything below the skies. Neither philosophy, nor 
science, nor literature with its best combination of sweetness and 
light, ever set forth sucha specimen of human nature, one so far re- 
deemed from the soil of the apostasy, and brought back so near- 
ly to its original position—‘‘a little lower than the angels.”’ 
Now it is true we have, God be praised, genuine, living exam- 
ples of this power of/grace. But with them the course is incom- 
plete, and we know not what the future may have in store. Our 
revered father has reached the consummation, and he shines 
full-orbed from heaven. No hand can touch him now—not a 
breath dim his bright escutcheon. And therefore he is, and will 
ever remain, a proof of the unique and mighty’ power of our 
faith in building up a noble human character. 

2. How Pleasant to leave a Blessed Memory /—After I had de- 
livered this discourse the first time, I learned from two distinct 
sources that years ago, Dr. De Witt had preached a sermon in 
the North Dutch Church from my text, and after unfolding 
in his own inimitable way the lineaments of Nathaniel, said at the 
close, ‘‘ How happy, my hearers, if you shall be found at life’s 
close to deserve such an encomium. For myself I have nothing 
more to ask when I come to die, than that it may be truly said 
of me, ‘ Behold an Israelite,’” etc. How exactly have his wishes 
been fulfilled! Without the least intimation that they had ever’ 
been uttered, I chose this text, and every hearer who knew 
him, has at once responded to its exquisite appropriateness. Is 
it not worth while so to live as to deserve such a tribute? This 


2 SERMON BY THE REV. DR. CIiAMBERS. 


is not to be confounded with the ordinary love of fame. For 
that, although Milton calls it “ The last infirmity of noble minds,” 
is indeed an infirmity. Mere fame is a poor, empty bauble. But 
it is a solid and satisfying reality to leave behind us a memory | 
which not only occasions no shame or mortification, but, on the 
contrary, is pleasant and refreshing to our survivors, animates 
them to all that is good, and makes it a delightful mess to 
them that they shall one day meet us again. 





Me SERMON 


PREACHED IN 


Pie COLLEGIATE CHURCH, ON- FIFTH AVENUE, 
Conner OF 29TH STREET, 


ON SUNDAY MORNING, MAY 24TH, 1874, 


BY 


Rev. W. ORMISTON, D.D. 


a 


“ 


yy 





SERMON BY THE REV. DR. ORMISTON. 


- “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth.”—Joun xi. 11. 


Arter a brief introduction based upon the narrative con- 
tained in the context, the preacher illustrated the endearing 
and indissoluble relation which exists between Christ and all 
believers; and the friendship which unites them to each other 
forever. Also, the aspect of death to the friends of Christ, as 
a sleep ; and their awakening to a complete and endless life. 

He then stated that the subject was peculiarly appropriate 
to the mournful circumstances in which the congregation 
were assembled that morning, and proceeded as follows: 


The sombre aspect of this pulpit reminds us that he who has 
so often occupied it, will stand here no more, “ Our friend Laza- 
rus sleepeth.” The beloved and venerable Dr. De Witt, senior 
pastor of this congregation, is gone. We all this day mourn the 
loss of a real, true, kind, loving, personal friend. We grieve be- 
cause we shall here see his face no more. Never again shall we 
behold him, till He who calls us His friends shall come to awaken 
both him and us from our last-sleep. It is no common loss to 
ourselves, to the church, to the world, which we now deplore. 
Seldom has so much of the purity, benignity, serenity, and char- 
ity of heaven been removed from earth by the departure of a sin- 
gle individual. 

It would be to me a melancholy pleasure, lovingly to dilate on 
the many prominent virtues of his character, personal and domes- 


tic, social and pastoral, in all of which he exhibited an excellence 
(75) 


76 SERMON BY THE REV. DR. ORMISTON. 


rarely attained even by eminent saints and faithful, devoted min- 
isters. But I restrain myself, as this labor of love kas been prop- 
erly assigned to my esteemed colleague, now your senior pastor, 
who, by his acknowledged ability, and his long and intimate 
association with the departed, is peculiarly fitted suitably to dis- 
charge that grateful duty. 7 

Yet it would do violence to my own feelings, and, I feel as- 
sured, painfully disappoint your expectations, were | not to pay 
a brief tribute of loyal respect to the memory, and lay one sim- 
ple wreath of loving regret on the tomb of one so justly dear to 
us all, as a friend of Jesus, a servant of God, and a preacher of 
righteousness. One, whose life was as radiantly beautiful with 
the graces of holiness, as it was richly laden with the abundant 
fruits of honorable and successful labor, and whose death was so 
precious and peaceful, so hopeful and happy. His noble work 
was done, and he has entered on his glorious reward. His mem- 
ory is blessed and lovingly embalmed in many faithful, grateful 
hearts. The name of Dr. Thomas De Witt mingles with the 
earliest recollections of most of you, and his presence is asso- 
ciated with the most hallowed and memorable events of your 
lives, while many of you have abundant reason to bless God, in 
time and in eternity, that you ever knew him. 

My personal acquaintance with him was comparatively brief, 
but owing to his fatherly condescension and kindness, it was 
very intimate, and most endearing. So soon as I became his 
colleague he took me at once to his heart, and instantly won 
mine, and | ever regarded him with feelings of affectionate and 
filial reverence. I enjoyed frequent, delightful, and profitable 
intercourse with him, during his latest and ripest years, when 
all his graces were rich, mellow, and very fragrant, Oft have I 
been filled with his company, and my heart refreshed by his 








See ee 


SERMON BY THE REV. DR. ORMISTON. 77 


converse. His counsels were prudent and safe, his words full of 
wisdom and comfort. 

To this congregation, among whom he ministered so long, and 
very many of whom have known him all their days, whose first 
religious and spiritual life are inseparably associated with his 
-person and ministration, it seems superfluous to speak, either of 
the grandeur of his singularly beautiful life, and the extent of his 
manifold and prolonged labors, or of the graces which adorned 
his Christian walk, and the excellencies which distinguished this 
ministerial services. Ye are his witnesses. 

The beauty and strength of his character lay in the mutual 
harmony and perfect balance of all his faculties. His mental and 
moral powers were nicely adjusted, each shedding a lustre over 
the other. His intellectual greatness, moral grandeur, and spirit- 
ual altitude, veiled by singular simplicity, admirable symmetry, 
and uniform excellence, like the proportions of a vast cathedral, 
appeared more striking and wonderful after a separate and care- 
ful contemplation. He was fashioned alter a noble pattern ; every- 
thing about him was upon a large scale; under no conditions 
could he ever have been an ordinary man. He would have 
occupied a high place among the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, 
and reformers of the past, as he towered loftily among the fore- 
most men of his own age and class. The greatness of his charac-. 
ter, like that of his life, was its completeness. He was nobly 
endowed and thoroughly disciplined. He grandly lived and glo- 
riously died. Viewed in any aspect, considered in any relation, 
he was both a great and a good man, eminently great in his 
goodness. : 

Of his eminent abilities, his varied and extensive attainments, 
his manifold and long-continued labors, it is not ours to speak. 
Nor do we refer to the lustre with which he shone in the varied 


78 SERMON BY. THE REV.-DR. ORMISTON. 


relations of life, as husband and father, pastor and friend, citi- 
zen and philanthropist, farther than to say that homes and hearts 


alike opened at his approach, and all good men were gladdened © 


and strengthened by his presence. Be it ours simply to note a 
few personal traits by which he was distinguished, and which we 
would seek assiduously to imitate. 


First and obvious to all who kuew him, our friend was charac- - 


terized by a@ most transparent guilelessness. He was a genuine 
Nathaniel, perfectly open and undisguised in all his plans and 
purposes. Generous, open-hearted, and confiding in the sincer- 
ity of others, every evidence of duplicity was painful and abhor- 
rent to him. Artless and undesigning as a child, he had no 
sympathy or fellowship with those who sought the attainment 
of even laudable ends, by cunning craft or wily strategem. He 
could never profess a sentiment he did not hold, or express a 
regard he did not entertain. His language and manners were 
frank and sincere, yet invariably benignant and courteous. In 
his later years he wore a royal robe of Christian urbanity and 
patriarchal simplicity. 

He was also eminent for inflexible uprightness : a quality which 
underlies all that is estimable in character, noble in spirit, trust- 
worthy in friendship, or reliable and honorable in the intercourse 
of life. Nothing could induce him to swerve from what he be- 
lieved to be true, or regarded as just ; nor could he compromise 
his dignity, his consistency, or his purity by approving measures, 
however plausible or politic, if questionable in principle, or by 
seeming to uphold what was dubious or false. He might -be 
mistaken, but never dishonest; misinformed, but never disingenu- 
ous. On all questions of right and justice, none ever doubted 
on which side his advocacy would be found. His integrity was 
clearly that of a candid and enlightened mind, of a pure and 


K 


i 
‘ 7 4 < 
ae ee ee ee ee ee ee 





SERMON BY THE REV. DR. ORMISTON. 79 


gentle heart, seeking at all hazards to keep a conscience void of 
offence. : 

Nor can we forget his affectzonate gentleness. How warm his 
affections ; how tender his sympathies ; how kindly his charities! 
Amiable in disposition, affable in manner, gracious in deport- 
ment, he drew all hearts towards him. He was truly a man 
- greatly beloved, and deservedly so, for he loved all. The law of 
love was in his heart, and words of kindness on his tongue. The 
wayward and the erring found in him a kindly reprover anda 
lenient judge; the poor and the destitute, an open ear, a feeling 
heart, and a ready hand; the penitent and humble inquirer, a 
fatherly welcome, wise counsel, and spiritual consolation; few 
mourning or troubled ones left his presence who did not leave part 
of their burden behind them, and go on their way with a lighter 
and a gladder heart. In all his intercourse there was a mild 
benignity which dispelled diffidence and inspired confidence, and 
a lofty dignity which silenced silliness and abashed impertinence. 

We only notice, farther, his personal holiness. His was a conse- 
crated life. His piety was humble and heartfelt, mature and 
mellow. Ever since I knew him, he seemed to live apart from 
and above the present world. His conversation was in heaven. 
His religion was that of a clear judgment, a tender conscience, 
strong emotions, and gracious habit. Among men he walked 
with God, and now he is not, for God hath taken him. He left 
upon all who met him an impression of peculiar sanctity. ° Hrs 
last days, in particular, were spent very near the portals through 
which he has now passed. He seemed to enjoy delightful com- 
munion with the perfected spirits above, even more than with 
the brethren he loved below. He was waiting, listening for the 
summons to go up higher; when it came, he was ready, and 
gladly entered into his rest. 


80 SERMON BY THE REV. DR. ORMISTON. 


Let us, dear friends, who knew him so well, and revered him 
so much, follow him as he followed Christ, in the guilelessness, 
the uprightness, the gentleness, and’ the holiness of his life. 
When we think of all he was 
he rendered, the moral power he wielded, and the spiritual 





the place he filled, the services 


influence he exerted as a pillar, an honor, and an ornament of 
our Church—the language of the sorrowing son of Shaphat, con- 
cerning the translation of his master, comes irrepressibly to our 
lips: “ My father! my father! the chariots of Israel and the 
horsemen thereof ;” or, we take up the wail of David, over the’ 
gallant son of Ner: “ There is a prince and a great man fallen 


> 


this day in Israel ;” or, we join in the lamentation of the Psalm- 
ist: “ Help, Lord, for the godly man ceaseth.” We mourn his 
removal, for he was our friend. It were to manifest ingratitude 
to Him who gave him to us and spared him so long, not to 
mourn; but we mingle gladness with our grief, and thanksgiv- 
ing with our mourning, for he was the friend of Jesus. Jesus 
loved him as a friend; and as our friend, he has gone to be with 
Him whom he loved. All who truly loved him must rejoice, 
that in a good old age, an old man, full of years and full of hon- 
ors, in the exercise of all his faculties, surrounded by his family 
and friends, in the sure hope of a glorious immortality and eter- 
nal blessedness, he fell asleep in Jesus, came to his grave in a full 
age, like as a shock of corn cometh in his season. 

- To his colleagues in the ministry, and office-bearers in this 
church, his removal is an earnest admonition to renewed dili- 
gence and increased fidelity in the discharge of their sacred 
duties, and a solemn warning that we, too, must soon give an 
account of our stewardship. May a double portion of his spirit 
rest upon us all, a spirit of humility and meekness, of patience 
and devotedness, of charity and love. 





SERMON BY. THE .REV. DR. ORMISTON. SI 


To the members of the church, many of whom are his spiritual 
children, whom he baptized, instructed, exhorted, admitted, vis- 
ited, counselled, and cheered, need I say, cherish his memory, 
recall and treasure up his many faithful ministrations, walk in 
his footsteps, imitate his graces, and so add to his blessedness. 
Follow him as a friend in Christ, fellow-worshipers, brethren be- 
loved, as seals of his ministry, proofs of his apostleship, stars in 
his crown. 7 

Two weeks ago to-day he sat with us at the table, where Jesus 
meets His friends. Our fellowship with him was sweet; and he 
poured forth his own heart and ours in fervent supplications and 
joyous thanksgiving, That was his last appearaice in the sanc- 
tuary, his last public service. Henceforth we shall see his vener- 
able form no more: never more listen to the tremulous tones of 
his well-known voice, or join with him in lifting up our hearts 
in earnest pleading or in grateful praise. He has joined the 
spirits of just men made perfect, and unites in the song of Moses 
and the Lamb. They above and we below form one family. 
All one in Christ, his friends and friends to each other. The bit- 
ter separation is brief, a joyous meeting and an eternal reunion 
is near. 

If there are any who have often heard the offers of salvation 
from his lips, but who have not yet accepted it, let the symbol 
of sorrow which drapes this pulpit to-day, give special solemnity 
and impressiveness to the oft-repeated message, “ Be ye also 
ready.” What! must he who so often plead pathetically with 
you to be reconciled to God, be constrained to bear witness 
against you, and testify, Lord, I often with tears entreated 
them to come in; but they would not. 

To have enjoyed the ministry of such a man was a great privi- 
lege and a grave responsibility. Our sincere and reverent re- 


82 SERMON BY THE REV. DR. ORMISTON. 


spect for the Messenger will avail us nothing, if we be found to 
have rejected his message and his master. ‘‘ Mark thou the per- 
fect man, and behold the upright; for the end of that man is 
peace.” ‘Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last 
end be like his.” : 





aoe RM ON 


PREACHED IN 


THE COLLEGIATE REFORMED DUTCH CHURCH, 
Cor. 5TH AVENUE AND 48TH STREET, 


Seo we bee lH MORNING, MAY 24TH, 1874, 


BY 


Phroees VU Db LOW, D.D. 





SERMON DNs av oe Le EU DLO Wi D.D. 


“Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this aay in 
Israel.” —II. SAMUEL, iii. 38. 


I DETACH the text, for our use to-day, from its original reference 
to Abner, the son of Ner. It has acquired an independent his- 
torical significance; for since the days of David, it has been the 
favorite text for sermons in eulogy of the distinguished dead. 
How often Cathedrals and Abbeys have rung with the funeral 
eloquence starting with this same sentence, as kings and states- 
men, warriors and writers have been lowered to the crypt! And 
how often the text has been misused on such occasions, through 
either intentional flattery of the pageanted dead, or gross misap- 
prehension of the elements which constitute true greatness! 

Who are the great? Not necessarily the occupants of great 
positions. We commend not the amount of the stone-mason’s 
toil on the pedestal, but the exquisiteness of the sculptor’s touch, 
making the marble face gleam with intelligence, and the muscle 
to almost move, as if it felt beneath it the play of nerves. So it is 
not the throne, nor any circumstance, but the man alone whom 
we must estimate. 

But not the man as a mere force. We must not estimate 
him solely as he makes himself felt. The men most noted for 
what they have seemingly accomplished, are often but the face 
of the hammer which smites, not the arm which swings it. They 
occupy points where great movements have culminated, the real 


force of which has been gathered from the masses of the people, 
(85) 


86 SERMON BY REV. J. M. LUDLOW, D.D. 


or accumulated in the growing sentiment of generations. Some 
of the smallest men have thus been enabled to make the deepest 
cut upon the brazen tablet of history. 

Nor does the possession of personal ability assure us of real 
greatness. When all the vigor of the body is drained away 
to one organ, we call the creature a monster, a deformity. But 
how often all the vigor of the mind is drained into some 
one faculty, giving the aspect of unwonted strength in that 
direction! We are, then, apt to notice only the extraordinary 
development, and not the withered totality of the man. The great 


warrior is too often but an intellectualized brute; the suc-— 


cessful politician, one who has a morbid propensity for seeing 
the weaknesses of his fellows, and using them; our money kings, 
the incarnation of greed, or men who have lashed themselves to 
almost superhuman toil by the most contemptible passion for 
show; our most applauded literary characters, men who are so 
carried away with the play of their own fancies, that they have 
not strength enough left to act with common-sense and fidelity 
in‘the ordinary spheres of life. 


The truly great man is he who has the most of the best quali- | 


ties, and has them in the best combination or mutual adjustment. 
But such a person is not the most apt to attract the attention of 
the multitude. One is not greatly impressed with the interior 
height of the cathedral at Cologne, though there are few steeples 
in New York which would not stand clear under its roof. This 
illusion is due to the long vistas and grand sweep of the arches, all 
lying in such exquisite harmony. .A rough scaffold of the same al- 
titude, erected in the open field, would impress you more in that 
one respect. A jagged point of rock astounds you with its mag- 
nitude. You did not notice the hill, thrice as large, which mod- 
estly hid its vastness beneath its graceful contour. Thus many 


eg 
. a 





SERMON BY REV. J. M. LUDLOW, D.D. 87 


of the greatest men have been unpraised, save in the deep admi- 
ration of the discerning. 

I take this text to-day over this draped pulpit, not in mere con- 
ventional propriety, since it is expected that I should make some 
_ allusion to that patriarchal man, who has been for so many years 
the senior, not only in our pastorate, but in many of your hearts ; 
but because, both in the conviction of community, and in my 
own appreciation, there is a rare pertinency in the text, “ Know 
ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in 
Israel!” 

Dr. De Witt was a man of great soul, as displayed in the 
strength of the moral |principle which always actuated him. Few 
men’s lives have so manifestly rooted themselves in a: sense of 
duty, as did his life. In the testimony of those who best knew 
him, there was no room.in him for the play of expediency be- 
tween “I ought” and “I will.” His conduct was easily under- 
stood and anticipated, because it moved in a straight’ line, and 
that line was projected by a clear conscience, which had not 
been bleared by the passions of youth, nor by the too common 
sinister ambitions of middle life. 

He had thus acquired more than strength of moral principle: 
he had a depth of moral feeling, which was a state of sublime 
scorn of everything beneath the highest conception of duty. 
Thus he did not seem to be personally aware of temptations to 
which the most of men are subjected. <As the deep, full-flooded 
river moves on without a ripple over the holes and rocks of the 
bottom, while the shallow stream is dashed into foam or turned 
off its course by them, so grandly did he move among the moral 
obstacles which trouble and often destroy the characters of 
ordinary men. ) 

While few took less immediate interest in the details of busi- 


Sa ; SERMON BY REV. J. M. LUDLOW, D.D. 


ness, and the more noisy public movements of the day, I doubt 
if any minister in our city ever had better influence upon busi- 
ness men than did he. His very aspect to those who knew him, 
was a more powerful sermon upon honor and integrity than 
most ministers could preach. 

To this immobility of principle he added an unusual eguanimi- 
ty of temper. Perhaps no one ever saw him ruffled. He was 
never thrown off his balance. Huis quick responses were as can- 
didly and as complacently given as were his deliberate utterances. 
The self-possession, exactness, and discrimination for which he 
was noted as presiding officer in so many-associations, ecclesias- 
tical and benevolent, were all retained amid the cares and recrea- 
tions of daily life. tet a 

And.very remarkably this self-possession was not due to any- 
_ thing phlegmatic or sluggish in his temperament. He was easily 
moved by whatever appealed to the generous qualities of the 
heart. He was deeply sympathetic. He wept with those who 
wept; and much of the grief at his funeral was in honest repay- 
ment of the tender feeling others had drawn from him. A 
phlegmatic temperament would never have swayed audiences 
by deep heart eloquence, as he used to do when in his prime. 

Nor was his equanimity due to anything like stoicism, or mere 
power of will by which he retained self-control. It was too 
natural for that. Its only explanation, aside from its religious 
aspect, was in the real greatness and nobleness of his disposition, 
which made him personally above the ordinary suggestions of 
selfishness. He seldom showed himself aggrieved or offended, 
because he was not in the habit of thinking much about himself. 
He was without that suspiciousness which is the mark of a little 
mind, and abounded in the charity which “envieth not, 
seeketh not her own,-. . . thinketh no evil.” His society 





SERMON BY REV. J. M. LUDLOW, D.D. + BB 


was thus a resting-place for others in their troubles, as the fretful 
stream loses its ripples when it mingles with the placid lake. Of 
late years he was very brief in his calls upon the people, but all 
felt a benediction from his quiet, dignified presence; his aspect 
was a sort of “peace be to this house !” and calmed many a 
vexed heart, of whose trials he knew nothing. 

Doubtless both these qualities, staunchest integrity and imper- 
turbable equanimity, were largely due to the third notable trait 
of his character, viz. : clear and decided belief. His mind could 
not rest in the vague generalizations of doctrine, which seem to 
satisfy somany. The objects of his faith were as definite as the 
language of the Creed. Descended from the old Dutch stock, 
bearing a name associated with the glory of the Netherlands, 
quietly boasting that he had no blood in him but what was from 
the Holland and French Huguenots, he adhered as tenaciously to 
his ancestral theology. Christian truth lay in his mind sharply 
cut with the logic of Calvin, yet all aglow with the earnestness 
of a Holland martyr. He was fascinated with the memories of 
his Church, and in hearty love for it, mastered, and retained to 
the end of his life, the Dutch language, and made himself one of 
the best read men of this country in the details of Dutch history. 

Yet he was one of the most Catholic spirited men in all the 
Church. There was not a drop of bigotry in his veins; not even 
of Protestant bigotry, which, let us confess, does lie in spots of 
scum on the surface of the otherwise refreshing spring of Protes- 
tant thought. The dying appointment of bearers for his funeral, 
selected as representative men from the various Denominations, 
attesting that his last thoughts were upon the unity of the faith, 
was a very natural appendix to the story of his more active life. 
Old Dr. De Witt was one of the best rebukes for the narrow- 
visioned, narrow-hearted, middle-aged, and young men, who 


90 SERMON BY REV. J. M. LUDLOW, D.D. 


conceive of orthodoxy as a state of obliviousness to everything 
beyond their own Catechism and Church. We shall best honor 
the fathers in the Church, not by stubbornly standing where 
they happened to be when God called them away, but by emu- 
lating their progressive enterprise and wide-reaching Christian 
charity, which made the Church a power in the community dur- 
ing their day. They would not thank us for petrifying the 
Church as they left it, and calling it their monument; but rather 
for making it what they tried to make it: most active, most cath- 
olic, and thus most useful. The Huguenot blood is not like that 
of St. Januarius, a globule of matter, kept as a memorial of some- 
thing in the dead past; but is living and flowing to-day through 
all the veins of our common Protestantism. And he is most 
loyal to the Church who feels most its generous, liberal spirit, 


most sympathetically related to the whole brotherhood of | 


Christ. 

I must note another feature in the heart lineaments of our 
venerable pastor, viz.: the deep experimental character of his re- 
ligious convictions. He not only believed, he lived Christian 
truth. The articles of faith were the anatomy of his soul-life. 

Holding the highest conceptions of the sovereignty and all- 
pervading presence of God, he was made by that thought one 
of the most reverent of men. He seemed always to move as if 
conscious of that august Presence; and the glory of the throne 
at which he looked, hallowed him, and made us reverent in 47s 
presence. | 

Holding to that most precious form of Christian doctrine, the 
covenant relation of believers to God through adoption, he lived 
in the simplest, most child-like confidence. He was one of the 
most cheering exemplifications of the Apostle’s statement, that 
‘‘ perfect love casteth out fear.” 


ee se < 


SERMON BY REV,.J. M. LUDLOW, D.D. gI 


Conceiving the cross of Jesus to be the necessary centre of the 
whole system of redemptive truth, the blood of the vicarious 
sacrifice the only solution of the problem of human justification 
and life, he was extremely sensitive to its meaning. A deep 
sense of personal unworthiness was mingled with a joyful 
P eloryime in the cross.’ “Grace! Grace!” was the “Selah” 
in his psalm of life. 

Holding to the doctrine of the still living Headship of Christ 
over the Church, and His real presence with believers, he com- . 
muned with Him “ whom having not seen”’ he loved. Those who 
saw him when a few months since he stood by the grave of his wife, 
as the precious dust was being committed to the earth, will never 
forget his testimony to the reality of Divine help, as raising his 
staff toward heaven he broke the silence, “ Farewell, my beloved 
and faithful wife! The tie that united us is severed. Thou art 
with Jesus in glory. He is with me by His grace. I will soon 
be with you. Farewell!” 

Holding to the future blessedness of believers, he was always 
ready to depart and be with Jesus, which was far better; and the 
most serene moments of his whole life were those during which 
he waited, watching the last sands run out of the glass of his mor- 
tality, until it should be reversed, and life begin anew with the 
full measure of immortality. 

Let me make a statue beneath which this inscription, A prince and 
agreat man, might well be written. Let the stalwart and upright 
form represent integrity ; the massive, serious brow impress the be- 
holder with the intelligence and earnestness of convictions; the — 
deep-pupiled eye, resting beyond the horizon, speak of far-reaching 
hope; the placid countenance tell of a peace which the world can 
neither give nor take away ; the smile upon the lips show the over- 
flow of the soul in generous love. Now bow the head, as if it felt 


92 SERMON BY REV. J. .M. LUDLOW, D.D. 


the touch of the light from above, for reverence. Now put // into 
the whole figure. You easily recognize it. It has walked yourstreets 


for halfa century. It has stood in this desk. As the patriarch 


Jacob “ worshiped, leaning upon the top of his staff,” and bless- 
ed his children of two generations, so that patriarchal figure has 
worshiped with and blessed us. ; 

Although a more formal discourse, commemorative of the life 
of Dr. De Witt, will be pronounced by another at a future day, 
T have felt that [ could not allow this first Sabbath of our Church’s 
grief to pass, without this hearty, though hasty, tribute to the 


memory of our now sainted senior pastor. Yet I am aware that . 


this seeming eulogy would not be desired by that modest, good 
man. - Could he have ordered my discourse, he would have said, 
‘“Preach not of me, but of Christ, te whom I owe all that I was 
upon earth, and all I shall be in heaven.” Yes, Christ is the sum- 
ming up of all the lessons of Dr. De Witt’s noble life and peace- 
ful death ; all our memories of him, all our affection for him, com- 


ing up from the past years of his faithful ministry, unite in this 


one voice to-day, “‘ Come to Jesus!” While we wait for the time 
of our departure, let us heed the injunction so signally exempli- 
fied in this beautiful life, “ That ye be not slothful, but followers 
of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” 





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THOMAS DE Wiis 


“KNOW YE NOT THAT THERE IS A GREAT MAN 
FALLEN THIS DAY IN ISRAEL?” 


AH! know ye not that from the earth 
A light and power are gone? 
A great man from our midst removed, 
“One widely known, and well-beloved, 
Has laid life’s burden down.. 


A life so grandly beautiful, 
So guileless, pure and wise, 
Were less akin to earth, than heaven ; 
And thus the spirit-wings were given 
That bore him to the skies. 


He lived above the world and left 
A character so bright, 

So perfect in its harmony 

Of Christian graces, none could see 
A spot to dim its light. 


His name stands out in bold relief, 
With names that never die; 
And earth is poorer for his loss, 
And heaven is richer for the gain 
Of one who long upheld the Cross, 
Nor lived his life in vain.” E. BOGERT. 


NOTE. 


, 


were sent in the form of 
letters to the editor, who, wishing to obtain as many facts as 


J 
THESE “ Personal Renniniscences’ 


possible respecting Dr. De Witt, wrote toa number of his friends 
among the clergy and laity. Some have simply expressed their 
approbation of the endeavor to preserve the honorable name as 
a legacy tothe church. The Rev. Dr. Hutton, in his most kindly 
note, says: “ My memories of dear Dr. De Witt are, indeed, 
-among the most cherished of my life. I loved him, respected 
him, admired him. I never heard him say anything that might 
‘not be repeated before the world; but I can recall nothing which 
would add to the estimation in which he was universally held.” 
Professor John De Witt, of New Brunswick, says: “ I need not 
tell you that I am greatly interested in your work; there ought 
to be such a memorial of Dr. De Witt. I have known him from 
my childhood, and he was my father’s friend and companion in 
early years, and yet I could add no incidents to your narrative. 
I can only dwell on admirable traits of character that others 
knew more of than I. His life was truly beautiful and grand; 
and I sincerely loved and admired him.” Similar replies were 
sent by Professor Tayler Lewis, of Union College, Schenectady ; 
Dr. Abeel, of Newark; and Dr. A. R. Van Nest, late of Flor- 
ence, Italy. 

The editor most gratefully acknowledges the graphic letters 
which make up the ensuing chapter. They contain those indi- 
vidual traits that are needed to give life and variety to biog- 
raphy ; they are like the.different-voiced stops in an organ that 


give new effects to one simple theme. Be, 











7 SEES) A ig 





oe 


Sta 


FROM THE REV. JOHN FORSYTH, D.D., CHAPLAIN 
AND PROFESSOR OF ETHICS AND LAW, U. S. 
MILITARY ACADEMY, WEST POINT. 


I WOULD gladly aid you, if I could, in preparing a proper 
memorial of one whom | so profoundly venerated and loved as 
I did Dr. De Witt; but all the help which I can render you will 
_ be slight, compared with that which I am sure you will get from 
those who had the privilege of almost daily intercourse with him 
during many years./ Perhaps I might give you as good, though 
not so finished and artistic, a portrait of him as they, for it did 
not require a long acquaintance with him to comprehend his 
character, his sincerity, simplicity, and strength, Evena stranger 
casually meeting him in any company, could not fail to have been 
struck with his grand physzque, and to have been impressed with 
the belief that it was a symbol of the nobler man within. But 
| take it, from the tenor of your note, that what you wish me to 
‘send you is not my estimate of him as a man and a Christian 
minister, but my personal recollections of him. For my own 
sake, as well as yours, I am very sorry that I cannot supply you 
with a greater number of the sort of incidents you want. 

The first time that I remember to have seen Dr. De Witt, was 
on the steamboat wharf at New Brunswick, when I was a stu- 
dent in Rutgers College. He was pointed out to me by some 
one who knew him, as he and Mrs. De Witt were waiting for 
their luggage. I looked at him with no little interest, as I had 
often heard him named as the most eloquent preacher in the 
Dutch Church of that day; and I had also been told by a vener- 


able resident of New Brunswick, with whom I was boarding, 
(97) 


98 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 


some amusing stories of the doctor’s absent-mindedness. This 
‘gentleman had known Dr. De Witt when he was a student in the 


Theological Seminary, and I well remember the zest with which 


he related the story of his young friends’ walking, in all sorts of 
weather, some four or five miles into the country to visit an 
humble household, one of whose members was dying of a lin- 
gering disease. He added that when some of Mr. De Witt’s 
fellow-students expressed surprise that he should go so far and 
so frequently simply to see the man, the former replied that he 
went not only to comfort the sick, but because he there got les- 
sons in pastoral and practical theology which he could nowhere 
else so effectually learn. 


I did not become personally acquainted with Dr. De Witt — 


until some time after my own entrance into the ministry, and I 
quickly felt for him a warm affection. Whenever I happened to 
be in New York of.a Sunday, and to worship, as I generally did, 
with my wife’s family in the collegiate church, it was ever a 
special delight to me to see Dr. De Witt ascend the pulpit. 
During my pastorate in Newburgh he came there to visit me, and 
to supply the Dutch Church. On Sunday morning, when we 
parted for the work of the day, I had no expectation of seeing 
him again until evening, as I knew that he would meet some old 
New York friends of his in the Dutch Church, and that they 
would insist upon his going with them to dinner and to tea. 
They did insist upon his going with them, as I had anticipated, 
but he replied tothem: “ No. I follow the Scriptural rule, ‘ Into 
whatsoever house ye enter, there abide.’”” And so I had the 
pleasure of his company during the whole of that Lord’s day, 
except while we were occupied with the services of the sanc- 
tuary. 

In 1846 Dr. De Witt visited Europe for the first, and, I belteve, 





q 
§ 
: 
’ 


PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 99 


the only time, in his life, and it was my privilege to cross and 
recross the Atlantic with him. We had a very pleasant com- 
pany on our outward voyage, which included his daughter, Mrs. 
Cuyler, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Carter, Dr. Wilson (then of Cin- 
cinnati, now of Louisville), and the late Dr. Polhemus, of New- 
ark. We reached Liverpool on a Saturday, and the next day 
Dr. De Witt went with me to hear Dr. Hugh McNeile, then rec- 
tor of St. James’ Church, now Dean of Ripon. He gave us one 
of his grandest sermons, afterwards published in the London Pul- 
gut, and which deeply impressed Dr. De Witt, as he often spoke 
of it in after years. We parted the next day, and a few weeks 
afterwards Dr. Polhemus and myself rejoined him in Holland ; 
but, unfortunately, we did not reach there in time to witness the 
attentions he received in the land of his ancestors. One thing 
I noticed, that he was no great sight-seer. He seemed more 
taken up with Hollanders than with Holland; and I well re- 
member how heartily he agreed with his old friend, the Hon. 
Harmanus Bleecker, of Albany—at one time Minister to Holland, 
whom we met at the Hague—who indignantly denounced the 
upper classes in Holland for being (seemingly, at least) ashamed 
of their mother-tongue, the French language being almost ex- 
clusively used by them in their families and in society. 

We returned to England by way of the Rhine, Belgium, and 
France, and reached London in time for the preliminary meet- 
ings of the Conference, out of which grew the Evangelical 
Alliance. These meetings were held in Freemason’s Hall, and 
I am sure that no one who attended them can ever hear the 
name of that hall without being reminded of the rich spiritual 
and social enjoyments there experienced, and of the able discus- 
sions of matters of vital importance to which he listened—some 
of them of special interest to the American,members. In this 


I0O PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 


Conference were such men as Edward Bickersteth, Baptist Noel, 
Thomas Binnie, John Howard Hinton, of London; John Angel 
James, of Birmingham; Dr. Raffles, of Liverpool; Drs. Ward- 
law and Buchanan, of Glasgow; Dr. A. Monod, of Paris; Pro- 
fessors Tholuck, of Halle, and Hoffman, of Basle. Among these 
distinguished men Dr. De Witt was recognized as being every 
way their peer. He was called upon to second what might be 
called the great resolution, viz.: the third of the series adopted 
by the Conference, and which was in these words: 


“That the members of this Conference are deeply convinced 
of the desirableness of forming a confederation on the basis of 
great Evangelical principles held in common by them, which 


may afford opportunity to the members of the Church of Christ — 


of cultivating brotherly love, enjoying Christian intercourse, and 


promoting such other objects as they may agree hereafter to | 


prosecute together; and they proceed hereby to form such a 
confederation, under the name of The Evangelical Alliance.” 


I think you will agree with me that Dr. De Witt’s speech de- 
serves a place in this memorial volume. 


“| heartily sympathize, Sir, with the beloved brother who pre- 
sided over our devotional EXEICiSes, when he said, that the place 
he then occupied he felt to be the most exalted he could covet 


or possess. I feel that it is a privilege, indeed, to second the ~ 


resolution which is now offered to form the Evangelical Alliance. 
Happy would I have been to have remained in this house un- 
- noticed and unheard, a silent and gratified spectator and listen- 
er; but to be allowed the privilege of seconding this motion, is 
an event the remembrance of which will, I doubt not, remain 
with me even to my dying bed. In the institution of that Alli- 


—— sO 


PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. IOI 


ance, the formation of which we are now entering upon, I find 
the realization of long-cherished desires and hopes. Though in 
great feebleness, I have, in my limited sphere, and with my small 
measure of influence, sought to cherish the spirit of affection and 
confidential intercourse with my ministerial brethren, as well 
-as with private Christians. I have felt the desirableness of 
breaking down the partition walls which exist not so much in 
denominations as in spirit; and of visibly meeting, as one in 
Christ, and as one in our common labors. And when the pro- 
ject—emanating from this great centre of influence in the Chris- 
tian world—reached our shores, I greeted it as an omen for the 
good of our world.) I hailed it as a star which was rising and 
would culminate. Gladly, when deputed to attend these meet- 
ings, did I look upon the Atlantic ; and are we not here all pres- 
ent, prepared to unite in and repeat the chorus, ‘ Blessed are our 
eyes, for they see what kings and prophets desired to see, yet 
saw not,’ and ‘ Blessed are our ears, for they hear what kings 
and prophets desired to hear, and yet heard not.’ And, Sir, I 
am cheered with a strong and confiding hope that we shall per- 
feet the work which we have now begun. I was not without my 
fears—and fears were also expressed by my Christian friends— 
that in proportion to the exceeding desirableness and magnitude 
of the object, was the danger, Jest the safeguards of truth should 
not be united with the cement of love; but these fears have 
passed away, and have been changed into strong hopes; and 
these anxieties have yielded to firm confidence. I have watched 
in the preparatory meetings, and I have listened and have com- 
pared and have marked what I thought to be the wisdom and 
the candor displayed in all these assemblies. I felt myself to be 
in an atmosphere of love, which I could not but inhale and 
breathe forth. I have been struck, too, with the humility, and the 


102 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 


dependence upon the Spirit of God which have been manifested ; 
and in that dependence is our strength. “When we are weak 
then we are strong,’ and I would say in reference to a remark 
made by the respected Brother who preceded me (Rev. Dr. 
Buchanan, of Glasgow,) as to trials, and obstacles, and difficulties, 
let us, instead of looking askance at each other, and repeating our 
own Shibboleths, look unto Jesus who is the Author and Finisher 
of our faith. ‘ Behold the Man, whose name is The Branch, for 
He shall grow up out of His place, and He shall build the temple 
of the Lord, even He shall build the temple of the Lord, and He 
shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon His throne.’ 

“ Let me, Sir, in the name of my American brethren, say, that 
we greet the commencement of the organization of the Evangeli- 
cal Alliance. Under the genial influence of your protracted 
councils, we have found ourselves drawn closer and closer. We 
thank God on your behalf, that among you has arisen a branch, 
which, we trust, will spring up in our western soil, and take root 
and spread itself through that extended field, where there is 
much land to be possessed—a branch, the leaves of which shall 
be for the healing of the nations. It is, indeed, good for brethren 
to dwell together in unity. It is like the holy oil that flows from 
the great High Priest of our profession, and falls down to the 
skirts of His garments—every member of the blood-bought and 
sanctified flock of Christ. And that spirit will assuredly calm and 
soothe the troubled surges of all religious controversy and ani- 
mosity. It is good to be here, Sir, for the dew of heaven is fall- 
ing, and here God commands His blessing, even life forevermore. 
It is good to be here; but let us build no tabernacles; let us 
rather go and carry this eternal life to a perishing world.” 

Of the subsequent discussions in the Conference—and some of 
them were very earnest and protracted—Dr. De Witt was a con- 


ee ee ae ee 


ee ee 


PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 103 


stant and interested hearer; but he took no active part in them. 
This was mainly due to the fact, that soon after the opening of 
the Conference, the sad tidings reached him of the death of his 
son Thomas. It was a heavy blow to him and Mrs. De Witt, 
and all the heavier because when it fell, an ocean separated them. 
Dr. De Witt felt it keenly, and yet those who saw him daily 
(Drs. Polhemus, Van Zandt, Mr. Carter, and myself) were struck 
with the calm, Christian fortitude with which he bore it. 

_ In later years I often met him in his own home, at the meet- 
ings of Classis, and in one or two General Synods, but I can 
recall at this moment no incidents of special interest. All that 
I need say, is that from year to year I felt for him an ever grow- 
ing veneration and love, and my heart re-echoed the first three 
words of Dr. Adams’ exquisite address at his funeral, ‘“‘ Dear Dr. 
De Witt!” 


WEST POINT, February 12th, 1875. 


FROM PROF. A. B. VAN ZANDT, D.D., THEOLOGICAL 
SEMINARY, NEW BRUNSWICK, N. J. 


I HAVE endeavored to recall my recollections of Dr. De Witt, 
to see if I could contribute anything of interest for your pro- 
jected memorial. I should count it a great honor to have my 
name associated with his, even thus remotely. But I fear that I 
have nothing that would be suitable to your purpose. Our 
brief sojourn together in Holland, left a deep impression, which 
will always be cherished in grateful memory. But apart from 
the enjoyment of his personal intercourse in a strange land, 


104 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES, 


its incidents were chiefly the ordinary experiences of travel, 
which will not bear repetition. It is true, by this closer contact 
under unusual circumstances, I gained a better and higher esti- 
mate of his noble character, and learned to admire and reverence 
the man, even more than I had done before. But others, who 
have enjoyed his intimacy for many years, can portray his excel- 
lencies far better than I can. ; 

There were, however, two occasions in Holland, when he 
made a public appearance, and acquitted himself with great 
éclat in the Dutch language.. The one was at a meeting at the 
residence of the venerable Dr. Capadose, at the Hague, on Sab- 


bath evening, to a large company assembled there, as was their - 


custom, for social worship and the study of the Scriptures. Dr. 
De Witt spoke in Dutch for full half an hour, and what was the 
more striking, his discourse was chiefly expository. The people 
were amazed and gratified, and Dr. Capadose complimented the 
Doctor’s Dutch as being more classic than his own. 

The other occasion was yet more trying to his nerves and his 
vocabulary. He was accredited as a delegate from the “ Ameri- 
can Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions,” to the 
Netherlands Missionary Society. The annual meeting of this 
socicty was held in one of the largest churches in Rotterdam, 
and it was crowded to excess. The most distinguished men of 
Holland were present, and her pulpits and universities were 
largely represented. The Doctor would have been quite excus- 
able if he had spoken in English, but his friends insisted that it 
should be in Dutch. Some of us who knew that he was more 
accustomed to read than to speak the language, were a little ap- 
prehensive of his faltering. But when once fairly under way, he 
rolled off the gutturals and the polysyllabic compounds very 
much as he used to do his vernacular in his own pulpit in 


Sie ap a Bee 


Tes es a on 


ee ae ee a ae 


a oe eee 


, PERSONAL. REMINISCENCES. . 105 


Fourth Street. There had been an elaborate sermon by a dis- 
tinguished divine, and there were addresses after his, but the 
Doctor’s speech was the event of the occasion. As nearly as I 
am able to recall the line of his remarks, he began with a mod- 
est expression of the gratification which he enjoyed in visiting 
_the “ Fatherland,” and those scenes of historic interest, long fa- 
miliar to his studies. He then made a graceful allusion to the mis- 
sionary spirit of the Reformed Churches of Holland as manifested 
in the planting and care of our own Church in America. This 
led to some notice of the then present condition of our Church, 
and its missionary work in connection with the American Board. 
The operations of that Board were then stated at length, and the 
address closed with one of his impassioned exhortations and ap- 
peals for continued and enlarged efforts in this cause. The im- 
mense audience hung in breathless attention upon his words, 
and when he ceased speaking, there was an audible movement, as 
when a multitude suddenly seek relief in a change of position. 

After visiting the chief points of interest in Holland, and a 
brief trip up the Rhine, we parted company, to meet again in 
London, at the session of the first “Evangelical Alliance.” In 
the discussions of that convention, Dr. De Witt did not participate 
so largely as some others from this side of the water, but his opin- 
ions had quite as much influence in moulding the organization 
and shaping its movements. 

A man of the Doctor’s commanding presence would naturally 
attract the attention of strangers. But his peculiar manner 
and gait, as he swung himself along, apparently unconscious of 
his surroundings, would often’ cause persons to stop in the 
street and turn to look at him as he passed. But though 
seemingly absorbed in his own reflections, he was yet keenly 
_ observant of whatever was worthy of notice, and would often 


106 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 


startle his companions by the shrewdness and humor of his 
remarks. He could relish an innocent jest as well as another, 
and his raillery was only the more effective for the gravity and 
dignity of his demeanor. The simplicity of his character was 
that of utter guilelessness; but they greatly mistook the man who 
supposed him to be destitute of sagacity. The great kindness 
of his heart alone rendered him liable to imposition, and to 
guard his purse from the professional beggars which swarm in 
foreign cities, was one of the cares of his companions in travel. 

To sum up my recollections in a single sentence, I could only 
say, what everybody who knew him knows already, that he was 
a nobleman of nature, adorned with the diadem of grace. No 
man in our church has ever left behind him a more enviable 
reputation, or deserved it better, than Dr. De Witt. 

If these few hasty lines can be of any service to you, you are 
welcome to use them in any way you please. I only regret that 
I could not offer you something worthy of the theme. 


NEw BRUNSWICK, Fed..8¢h, 1875. 


FROM REV. HERVEY D. GANSE, PASTOR OF THE 
MADISON AVENUE REFORMED CHURCH, NEW 
YORK. 


I FIND on the most thorough inventory of my memories and 
impressions concerning “dear Dr. De Witt,” that he gave to his 
friends so much more occasion for love and veneration than for 
minute delineation or interesting recital, that it is hard to do 
justice to him on paper. When one has drawn a large and 





PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 107 


sweeping outline of a guileless, gifted, spiritual man, preaching 
the Gospel in its most evangelical form of love to all saints and 
sinners, and with the eloquence that comes from an experienced 
heart, a fertile mind, and an unfaltering tongue, and illustrating 
his preaching with a blameless life and a wise and practical char- 
ity—when to this picture of his moral and spiritual part is added 
that of his imposing stature and magnificent head and face, his 
unstudied gesture and gait, his ringing voice, his absent air; and 
when to all this is added again the idea of his long life and the 
circumstances of honor and usefulness in which it was passed, the 
greater part of the impression which Dr. De Witt made upon 
his acquaintances and admirers has been described. The very 
brightest and best things do not require as long description as 
the faulty ones. By the time you have said that the sun is round, 
and bright, and warm, and high, and that it attracts all the plan- 
ets, you have said more about the sun than you could say about 
many a mean and dangerous thing with ten times as many words. 
The better a man is, the easier it is to describe him and the 
harder to paint him. You can describe him in a word by calling 
him “a saint,” but to paint him you must have idiosyncracies to 
work on; and human idiosyncracies are pretty sure to have a 
strain of depravity in them. And so I never knew a man whose 
character, and history as well, more evaded striking particulari- 
zation than Dr. De Witt’s; who gave his admirers so much to 
feel about and so little to tell about. 

The first that I remember about him was the frequent repeti- 
tion of his name by my parents, who had moved out of one of his 
congregations in Dutchess County into New York, when I was 
a child three years old. They spoke of him so much and with 
such enthusiastic affection, that | grew into my first intelligence, 
with Mr. De Witt, as they called him, for a great phenomenal 


108 . PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 


fact in the religious world, like the union of the States or a repub- 
lican form of government in the political world. He was the 
ministerial office in ideal and in perfection—other ministers whom 
I heard of and saw, being remote and imperfect adumbrations 
of his completeness. This impression did not come from any 
disparagement of other men, but from an unaffected love and 
admiration of him, which left all common praise of others as far 
below it as a plain is below a mountain. His coming to New 
York, which took place when I was five years old, was so: im- 
portant a matter of household talk, that it has left the most defi- 
nite impression on my memory. I even remember what neigh- 
bors were present when the news of his expected coming was 
announced by my parents. Yet the distance at which we were 
living from the North Church, the nearest of the collegiate 
churches, kept the family in Dr. Brodhead’s church, to which 
it had become attached, until the opening of the Ninth Street 
Church as one of the collegiate churches, and the removal of 
Dr. Brodhead to the country opened the opportunity, which was 
gladly seized, of bringing back Dr. De Witt into our home as 
pastor. Dr. De Witt was about forty-five years old when, asa 
boy of fourteen, I began to hear him preach. Of the fluency, 
fervor, richness, imaginativeness, spirituality, eloquence of his 
preaching in those days, and for many subsequent years, I do 
not need to remind you. Nothing struck a hearer more than 
the absolute absence of self-consciousness and contrivance in his 
sermons. His voice, his attitude, his hands, his words, seemed 
to go where the affatus put them. He seemed to have no more 
to do with the whole matter than though God had created him 
just then, in body and soul, that he might be the recipient and 
channel of that one communication. I have heard other preach- 
ers who seemed to be caught away by their theme. Yet there 





PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 109 


has been with them all, the evident duality of the theme and the 
man whom it mastered for the time. Dr. De Witt, at his best, 
seemed to be Gospel truth and feeling incarnated; his very oddi- 
-ties of attitude and gesture being the proof that no common 
device of oratory was within his thought or knowledge. In this 
way a style of action, which all the professors would have utterly 
forbidden, became a hundred-fold more effective than their meth- 
ods could ever have been. Just think of Dr. De Witt with the 
manner of a prim orator put on him! It would be like putting 
a square league of balm and spicery into a smelling-bottle. And 
his voice, of the management of which he £zew no more than 
the wind knows about managing an A‘olian harp, would range 
from that high tone of passionate declamationsin which it rang 
almost like metal, down to that strange guttural resonance which 
betokened his deepest and tenderest feeling, when the substance 
of sobs seemed to transform itself into articulate speech. I never 
heard the same quality in another voice. It could never be imi- 
tated or learned. It was a kind of soul-speech, that could be 
uttered only by a magnificent voice overmastered and appropri- 
ated by magnificent feeling. 

His memory was the subject of much comment and wonder in 
my father’s family. It used be said that when he read his hymns 
his eyes would seldom be on his book; and his “ preaching with- 
out notes” was thought to be proof of a singular power of arrang- 
ing and remembering his thoughts. Neither of these matters seem 
so remarkable to me as they did in my bdyhood. But his ability 
to store his mind with dates and figures, which he would give 
off without hesitation in long detail, was truly wonderful. Those 
who have heard his historical discourses on different occasions, 
will remember the surprise which these feats of memory have 


always renewed. 


I1O PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 


It has always been the fashion with his friends to tell wonder- 
ful stories concerning his absent- mindedness. But few men 
were less apt to forget what belonged to the essence of politeness 
and dignity. He was a thoughtful, courteous gentlemen, but 
drawn-very large, with no time wasted on the person or the 
drapery. | 

With all his abstractedness, he was a shrewd observer; and 
while his habits of feeling brought him most into sympathy with 
good things, he could see the amusing side of a man or his acts, 
and géod-humoredly paint it with a word. Those who knew 
him well, will remember the characteristic way in which he 
would lean toward them, and look them full in the eye as he de- 
livered with a broad, boy-like smile the pleasant conceit which 
came over him. 

No man was less exacting of formal attentions; yet his instinct 
of propriety and kindness could take notice of a discourtesy, and 
if need were, rebuke it. I have often heard my mother tell of a sur- 
prise, which, in his younger days, he gave to his congregation in 
the New Hackensack Church, when in the midst of a sermon, he 
stretched out his hand toward the gallery in front of him, and 
with a gesture appropriate to the words, said authoritatively, 
“Mr. T——, sit down.” Mr. T. was the singing master, and 
when the service was over, he waited at the foot of the gallery 
staircase to remonstrate with the minister for calling attention 
to him in that peremptory way. But Mr. De Witt would not 
hear a word from him. ‘For several Sundays,” he said, “you 
have done that same thing. It is disrespectful to the minister, 
and I will not suffer it any longer. You have deserved it all.” It 
turned out that Mr. T. was in the habit of relieving the fatigue 
of the Sunday service by rising from his seat and sitting on the 
gallery-front, with his back toward the preacher. But that_end- 





PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. III 


ed the habit. Such a story of course could only belong to his 
earlier life. In his matured fame and character, he had such com- 
mand of all men’s respect, that he probably never dreamed of a 
personal discourtesy. 

I could speak of some of Dr. De Witt’s acts of liberal giving, of 
-which I have had personal knowledge; but his name has been so 
often seen among those of the contributors to our Church 
Boards and institutions, that I need not touch that matter. His 
identification with all good causes as President, Director, Com- 
mitteeman, or contributor, is also well understood. 

_ But when all is said, it is as preacher, that Dr. De Witt has 
made his wide and lasting reputation. In the last years of his 
life, indeed, in which he preached but little, the new generation 
have known him chiefly by the regard which their seniors have 
paid to his venerable age and character. But this regard itself 
has been the living extension of that consideration which he first 
attracted by his wonderful pulpit gifts. Yet those gifts were of 
a sort that absolutely required pre-eminent picty to make them 
very available. Some pulpit triumphs suggest the idea of other 
fields in which the preacher might have secured equal, if not 
greater, attention. The trenchant logic, the elaborate style, the 
breadth and fullness of illustration, the cultivated oratory, could 

evidently have commanded great success in any direction. But | 
imagine Dr. De Witt with any other work than that of preaching 
the Gospel! The wonder was, that a man of a temperament ex- 
ternally so cold and immoveable, could so easily be aroused to 
enthusiasm. But if the theme was Christ, redemption, sanctifi- 
cation, the uses of sorrow, triumph over death, eternal salvation ; 
the preaching might proceed in the old Middle Church on a 
rainy, winter night, with twenty people, or five, scattered among 
the high-backed pews; and the preacher’s soul would dilate, and 


II2 PERSONAL ae 


glow, and, soar, till it touched, as nearly as mortals ever do, all 
the limits of the Gospel. | 

It was always observed that any domestic sorrow wrought a 
direct effect upon the discourses which immediately followed it. 
It was his heart that preached; and it preached best when it had 
been preached to, and so had its word direct from God. 

I have often heard Dr. De Witt express doubt whether his 
method of preparation, which threw him so largely upon the in- 
fluences of the occasion, had been the best. For those grandest 
flights of his, which seemed more like New Testament prophesy- 
ings than like modern preaching, it was the only method. If it 
leaves no printed result, it leaves such an impression of the joy 
and profit of those vanished words as is better than most printed 
sermons, and perhaps is better even than would be the record 
of those very words with the life of tone, gesture, and fervor all 
taken out of them. 

So I have run on, my dear friend, about him who has, all my 
life, been before me as the best embodiment of a ‘‘ man of God.” 
But there is a comfort in speaking warmly of those who both 
deserve warm words, and deserve them from us. 


NEw YorRK, Fed, 2d, 1875. 


FROM REV. ABRAHAM MESSLER, D.D., OF SOMER- 
VILLE, NEW JERSEY. 


THE first time I saw Dr. De Witt, was in May, 1822, when he 
came to New Brunswick to attend the annual examination of the 
students of the Theological Seminary. I remember distinctly 





d 
| 
| 


PERSONAL REMINISCENCES, I13 


how his countenance impressed me. His massive head, with an 
impending brow, and thoughtful, expressive eyes. He sat most 
of the time with his elbow on a table, leaning his chin on his 
hand, often smiling, as if some pleasant thought was _ passing 
through his mind. He was then a young man, and had 
been only a very few years settled in his first charge at Hope- 
well. I compared his personal appearance with the men by 
whom he was surrounded, and thought then how much their su- 
perior he looked to be. He seemed to me to be one of the 
strongest men, intellectually, I had ever seen. There was power 
in his presence. | 
His memory was'still fresh and green in the Seminary, and 
many anecdotes were told of him. The students were obliged 
at that time to go to Millstone to recite their Hebrew to Rev. 
John M. Van Harlinger, and Dr. De Witt often walked out there, 
the distance being some six miles. On one occasion he was ob- 
served, with a stick in his hand, with which he tapped every 
post in the fence, as he passed tt; he missed one, but returned 
and gave it a tap, and then started on, all the time, no doubt, 
conning the Hebrew Grammar, or thinking hard,it may be, of 
some perplexing theological problem which he had been studying. 
‘The same entire self-absorption was often remarked of him 
while at Hopewell. One day, he had gone out to his pasture, to 
bring in his horse to drive or ride. out to a lecture in the country, 
some miles from his residence. He caught the animal, put the 
bridle on his head, and putting the reins over his shoulder, pro- 
ceeded toward the house; but when he came there, there was 
no horse attached to the other end of it. The animal had been 
cunning enough to slip his head out of it, arid the good dominie, 
thinking all the time about his lecture, had never noticed what 
had occurred. | ; 


II4 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 


I have seen him in the streets of New York, passing on among 
the crowd, apparently thinking of no one, and noticing no one 
whom he-passed, evidently in deep thought, and hardly conscious 
of where he was. The passengers seemed to know him, and 
avoided any collision with the absent man, as the only safe thing 
for them to do. | 

The same apparent absorption of thought and unconsciousness 
of surrounding objects, was manifest in his pulpit exercises. He 
preached extempore for the most part, and with his eyes closed 
during much of the time. Hence his gestures were expressive 
rather of what e felt, than of what he was endeavoring to make 


his hearers feel. They were not studied, had no rule, were not. 


made to point and emphasize his discourse, but they broke out 
of his own intense emotion, as if he could not prevent them. He 
made them because he could not help making them in the excite- 
ment of his own mind, and feeling as he did at the m: ment. 
They had no rule, and were sometimes almost anything rather 
than graceful and appropriate, but they told how earnest he was 
in enforcing his theme. 

As a preacher, Dr. De Witt’s power was in his complete 
self-forgetfulness, and in the vast range and splendor of his 
imagination, and in the facility and grandeur of his improvisa- 
tion. He rose habitually into the higher regions of eloquence, 
and not infrequently into the fervor and imaginativeness of the 
poet. He was best, usually, when he had some practical theme, 
embracing Christian experience. Then his heart would wake 
up, his religious affections become excited, and he often seemed 
to float away into regions far beyond our terrestrial sphere, to 
revel in unseen glories, as if the very gate of heaven had been 
opened to him. President Frelinghuysen once said to me, after 
removing to New York, and assuming the Chancellorship of the 





PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. I15 


University, “ You cannot think how I enjoy the preaching! Dr. 
De Witt sometimes makes me jump.” And then in estimat- 
ing his power as an orator, and his intellectual stamina, he af- 
firmed that he was superior to Daniel Webster; and if he had 
been trained as a lawyer and politician, he would, in his opinion, | 
have been greater in the United States Senate than Webster 
ever was. | 

In hislatter years, Dr. De Witt lamented that he had written so 
-ittle, and preached so much from the impulse of the moment. 
“You gentlemen,” said he, “ who have written your sermons, 
have a store to fall back upon, but I am left almost without any- 
thing; and with failing memory, and diminished aptness of 
thought and sentiment, find the work of preaching well more 
difficult every day.” 

Dr. De Witt was a most generous, honorable, and noble man. 
I remember how, on one occasion, when cruelty and improprie- 
ty had been charged against an individual, he would burst forth 
and flame out in expressions of disapprobation, whenever the 
man’s name was mentioned. 

The last time I met the Doctor was in a social party at his 
daughter’s in Philadelphia. A number of clergymen had been 
invited — most of them his friends. It was a happy meeting, and 
he enjoyed it to the fullest extent. The general talk, the happy 
expression of his countenance, his brilliant eye, and his hearty 
laugh, all bore witness to the pleasure he experienced in meeting 
with so many friends. He told his anecdotes, and passed around 
the parlors among the guests, animated, joyful, and delighted— 
indeed, a very happy man! I love to cherish that last social 
evening among my many treasured memories. | loved and hon- 
ored the man, and feel now a pride in being able to say that he 
was my friend ; and always asa friend among those most trusted | 


116 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 


We saw things generally in the same light and thought of 
our dear, honored Church, with the same fondness ; and though 
in different spheres, we both labored earnestly for its pros- 


perity ! 


SOMERVILE, N. J., Fam. 18th, 1875. 


FROM REV. WM. Hh “CAMPBELL, D.D., OF RUTGERS 
COLLEGE, NEW BRUNSWICK, N. J. 


My acquaintance with Dr. De Witt, which began more than 
forty years ago, soon ripened into a friendship which lasted till 
his death. During this long space of time, I have seen him in the 
joys and sorrows of his own home, and in the gladness and grief 
which the successes and failures of God’s cause bring unto His 
people. And alike in all he was always the same. His religious 
convictions never wavered, his purposes were abiding, and his 
steadfast continuance in well-doing was still joined with the same 
child-like simplicity of character. Whenever I met him, or went 
to see him, his questions about the friends whom I had seen more 
lately than he, and the interest he showed in all that concerned 
them, proved him to be a true member of the body of Christ. 
He felt joy or sorrow as God’s children had gladness or grief. 
None who knew him would ever charge him with selfishness. 
He showed his heart was large by the many it took in, and its 
especial tenderness by the affection he displayed for all who 
loved Christ, and took an interest in His kingdom. He loved 
most tenderly, and was most loyal to his own branch of the 
Church of Christ, but at the same time he had a most catholic 





PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 117 


spirit, and loved all who bore the Saviour’s image in their hearts. 
He was not insensible to evil done to him or spoken’ of him. 
Quite otherwise. I know two instances in which he felt 
deeply, and spoke decidedly of wrong doing, but his words of 
condemnation were so spoken and mellowed by the accents 
of love, that it would have been the easiest thing in the world 
for him to have closed his censures with the doing of some great 
act of kindness for the sinners. 

Dr. De Witt was too modest and undemonstrative to speak 
much, or, indeed, to speak at all of his own religious experiences, 
I judge, therefore, rather from the general tenor of his conversa- 
tion, than from any direct statement, that for many years he en- 
joyed an unshaken hope of an interest in Christ. His thoughts 
and feelings seemed to be always circling around the cross of 
Christ. That was a centre from which he was never far distant. 
And his even cheerfulness seemed to show that the Master never 
left him without the sensible tokens of His presence. I have 
known many who spoke more about their nearness to Christ and 
their spiritual enjoyments; but I have never seen one in whom I 
thought I saw so many and so strongly marked features of a 
filial spirit—the spirit of a son of God. And now when he has 
departed, the remembrance of his child-like dutifulness to our 
Father in Heaven, kindles in me a quickening of desire to follow 
him, because I am sure that he was seeking to walk in the very 
footsteps of Christ. ) 


NEW BRUNSWICK, Fed. 23d, 1875. 


118 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 


FROM PRESIDENT HOPKINS. 


My DEAR Mrs J.:—It was as a young man, and a stranger in 
New York, that I first heard your father preach. The impres- 
sion made upon me was peculiar, and I despair of conveying it 
to others. The reason is that that impression was so much 
from personal qualities that were distinctive, and that could be 

appreciated only as they were immediately known. - | 7 
~ T may say, however, that in producing that impression, one 
element was his person. That was massive and commanding. 
It was in keeping with the large churches in which he preached, 
and the large audiences he addressed. 

Another element was his movements. These were entirely 
unstudied, and conformed to no rules of art. He seemed to be 
swayed: by his subject, and often to be so rapt in it, as to be 
oblivious of time and place. After giving a magnificent sermon, 
I remember he would sometimes, in reading the last line of the 
last hymn, turn round and utter it with great force directly 
against the back of the pulpit. This was done with such evident 
unconsciousness as not to produce an unpleasing effect. 

A third element was the structure of lis sentences. I have 
heard no speaker who could evolve sentences of similar length. 
In uttering these he would gradually rise in his delivery as the 
sentence progressed, and the effect was like that produced by 
watching one who makes a perilous ascent. You sympathize 
with him as he goes up, and wonder how he is to get down. 

These elements were effective, but would have availed httle 
if his discourses had not been pervaded by that subtle and indes- 
cribable thing called genius. The sermons not being written, 
flashes of this would seem to come as by inspiration, and so 





PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. IIg 


would awaken surprise. But these were only by the way, so 
that, in hearing him, you were like a person passing through a 
region where unexpected and pleasing views are constantly 
meeting you, at the same time that you do not feel that you have 
gone out of the way for the sake of them. 

With these elements there was connected, and with no touch 
of rigidity or sternness, the earnestness and solemnity that be- 
came a minister of Christ; so that, without knowing him at all 
personally till many years afterwards, I felt for him an affection- 
ate reverence that nothing short of transparent goodness, con- 
nected with intellectual power and with beauty of character, 
could inspire. | | 

_ You have my best wishes in seeking to perpetuate an influence 


that can be only for good. 
| Cordially yours. 
WASHINGTON, APril 22, 1875. * 





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foe TROM THE REV. WM. S. PLUMER, D.D. 


Two days before Dr. De Witt died, a telegram was received from Dr. Plumer 
in reply to a letter announcing the serious illness of his life-long friend. The dis- 
patch was simply this: ‘‘ Because I live, ye shall live also.” 

The letter here given followed as speedily as possible. 


EXPECTING in a few hours to start for Mississippi on business, 
deemed by my brethrén important to the good of Zion, I have a 
letter stating that on the 13th inst. my venerable and long-tried 
friend, Rev. Dr. De Witt, is ill, and nigh unto death. Speaking 
of his burial, he said, “I should love-to have Dr. Plumer here, 
but it is too much to ask of him.’ No! great and modest man, 
it isnot asking toomuch. If my duty did permit, my heart would 
surely take me there to weep with those who weep for a/father, 
friend, and pastor taken, and to rejoice with those who rejoice in 
the blessed hope of a glorious immortality beyond the grave, 
not only for Dr. De Witt, but for all who have like precious 
faith. 

Should Dr. De Witt, contrary to the fears of his friends, linger 
till my return from the West, I will promptly obey any summons 
to his bed-side, or to his funeral. But my expectation is that I 
shall see his face no more in the flesh. 

I was allowed to make an address at the funeral of his and my 
old friend, Rev. C. C. Cuyler, D.D., of blessed memory. I was 
permitted to preach a sermon on the occasion of the death of 
dear Julia Plumer De Witt, the youngest daughter of Dr. De 
Witt. 

Last autumn I attended the funeral of his lovely and ex- 

(123) 


124 VARIOUS TRIBUTES. 


cellent wife. Well do I remember how he then said it would 
not be long before he should join her in a better world. 

My estimate of Dr. De Witt’s character and worth was well 
expressed by the late Dr. James Alexander, in these words: 
“Taken all in all, no living man has a more desirable’ and 
deserved standing in the Church of God than Dr. Thomas De 
MV ithe? : 

Till we meet around the throne above, farewell, thou blessed 
servant of the Most High God. Sing on, sing on forever the 
song of redemption, the everlasting song, which, yet to eternity, 
shall be the zew song; the song of sinners washed and made 
white in the blood of the Lamb. Glory be to God for the 
hopes of heaven. ‘The Lamb is the light thereof.” 


COLUMBIA, S. C., May 15, 1875. 


FROM THE REV. JOHN DE WITT. 


My Dear Mrs. J——:—Your letter containing the announce- 
ment of your dear father’s death came to hand this morning. 
I had heard from Mrs. S—— several days before, the same (I 
hardly dare say) sad news, and purposed writing you the mo- 
ment I came to this place. And now that I am here, I hardly 
know what to say, except that next to my own father, I loved, 
and honored, and revered him more than any man I have 
known. What a well-rounded life his was! In his day, the 
most popular, and more than that, deservedly the most popular 
of pulpit orators, he yielded his place more gracefully than any 
one I have ever heard of. I have heard my father say that he 


VARIOUS TRIBUTES. 125 


has seen him in the pulpit when he seemed like a Hebrew 
prophet, lost to everything around him, and wrapt in the con- 
templation of a divine vision he was interpreting. } 

W hat a great thing it was to live so far above the little envy, 
and jealousy, and suspicion which torment the lives of most of 
us. And then, with no doubts to impair the vigor of his faith, 
and no forebodings to dim the glory of his great hope of the life, 
to come! The more I think of him, the more thankful I am that 
I knew him, and the more proud of our name. It is best that 
he died suddenly, no doubt. A long and painful illness does not 
become, to our view, a life so well lived as his was. The more 
nearly like a translation, the more befitting a career like his who 
“walked with God, and was not, for God took him.” You and 
I may well make the prayer which constitutes the motto of 
Boston, our own, “ Deus sit nobis, sicut patribus.” Let God be 
_ with us, as he was with the fathers. 

I received K.’s letter telling me of it the day before I left the 
middle of England for the lake district. You know, perhaps, 
how some impressive announcement associates itself with scenes 
amid which one feels its impression. At any rate, it was so 
with me. I walked about Lake Windermere, thinking of him 
and of his life, when suddenly the lake itself seemed the most 
fitting symbol of what he was, and how he lived; lying calm 
and clear, looking up to the great mountains surrounding it, and 
receiving into its bosom from them the streams which it sent 
forth again to bless the plains below it. So he lived, quietly, 
but always looking upward to heights above him, and above us 
all, transparent as the lake—always receptive—always outgiving 
to us who lived far, far below him. Dr. Adams once said to 
me (I think it was soon after father’s death), “So long as my par- 
ents lived, I did not feel how fast the years were slipping from 


126 VARIOUS TRIBUTES. 


me; but when they were gone, I began to realize that what had 
appeared a barrier between me and death was gone; that there 
was no generation between me and the grave.” 

Perhaps you have had the same feeling since your father’s 
death. Well, there is this compensating thought, common 
enough, but as true as it is common, that if such a death makes 
the prospect of death coming to us more vivid, it also makes the 
thought of heaven more like the thought of home. May God 
comfort you with this reflection, and with “His manifest 
presence.”’ 


FPROM*S. BYsy ue 


‘‘T COUNT it as one of the privileges of my life to have known 
such a man as Dr. De Witt, and one of its honors to have enjoyed 
such measure of his personal regard as was accorded, me, and was 
proved by many acts of kindness, chief among which, and never 
to be forgotten, was his wonderfully touching, and sympathizing, 
and most eloquent prayer at the funeral of my wife. How gifted 
he was in ¢hat ministry. 

How excellent were the eulogies at his own funeral, and 
how did our hearts respond to their justice. How mag- 
nificent was that head, and how stately that robed form, on 
which the many hundreds gazed for the last time. I repeat, 
that I never knew a man for whom I had a higher reverence, 
and in a forty years’ ministry among different denominations, I 
have known many great and venerable men. You have good 
reason to cherish and honor the memory of such a father. It 
will be a life-long joy that you were permitted to nourish and 
minister to the patriarch of Christ so assiduously and affection- 


VARIOUS TRIBUTES. 127 


ately in his declining days. Well might he have said as his 
Master did, ‘ Daughters, weep not for me, but for yourselves.’ 

‘‘fow much better thus to die in the full strength of his intel- 
lect and heart, though at so advanced an age, than to linger on, a 
conscious or unconscious burden to oneself, and a care to 
friends.” 


From “ The Christian Intelligencer.” 


THE Rev. Dr. THomAs DE WITtT died at his residence in 
Ninth Street, in this city, on Monday morning last, May 18th, 
The death of no minister of our Church has ever awakened an 
interest more profound and tender than that which follows this 
announcement. It may well be doubted whether even the father 
of our denomination, as Dr. Livingston has naturally been called, 
held a larger place in the affection and reverence of all its mem- 
bers than has been conceded for the last thirty or forty years to 
Dr. De Witt. This distinguished place, besides, may be said to 
have been held by him not only without a partner, but without 
a competitor. Some, indeed, have equalled him in general learn- 
ing, and others in piety, and others in some forms of eloquence. 
But there has been no other man among us during this last gen- 
eration in whom all the elements of a minister’s greatness have 
met as they have in him. 

The substantial material of this greatness—-the marble out of 
which all the noble contour was cut—was. unquestionably his 
moral character. Many another man with exactly his measure 
of ability would have claimed distinction for genius. But Dr. 
De Witt, even in the days when his fervid and imaginative ora- 


128 VARIOUS TRIBUTES. 


tory drew crowds of listeners, exacted but little praise for mere 
intellectual power. And for this good reason: It was the heart 
that made him eloquent and not only the head. A great glowing 
soul, filled up with the love of Christ; and thus with all tran- 
scendent thoughts about Christ, took possession of his tongue; 
and his speech was a tide of Gospel truth set on fire with Gospel 
feeling. Only those whose memories can go back thirty or 
forty years to the days of his prime, can understand the enthusi- 
asm which his preaching awakened. His grand form and mag- 
nificent head have been with us till now; but the picture which 
they used to make in his erect and vigorous manhood, while his 
ringing voice and intense and characteristic gesture interpreted 
the ecstasy of his swelling, soaring, half-unconscious spirit—that. 
comes back from by-gone days, the reminder of an eloquence 
which we get from no other lips. 

It was the same moral quality that distinguished his whole 
life. ‘Transparent piety toward God, and guilelessness toward 
men, made a character which, while it was as marked and indi- 
vidual as any among us, commanded the veneration of the whole 
community. The recent years, which have diminished so large- 
ly his power for public service, have not lessened his hold upon 
the public heart. Indeed, the special sympathy that was lately 
attracted to him by the loss of his beloved and devoted wife, has 
been specially repaid by that exhibition of resignation and cheer- 
ful Christian hope which have fairly put the crown upon his 
beautiful earthly life. His real and heavenly crown his Master 
will put upon him in “ that day.” 


VARIOUS TRIBUTES. _ 129 


from “The New York Observer.” 


ONE of the most venérable, beloved, and distinguished minis- 
ters in our city has left us for his eternal rest. The Rev. Thomas 
_ De Witt, D.D., senior pastor of the Collegiate Reformed Dutch 
Church, died on Monday, May 18th, in the eighty-third year of 
his age. 

He came to his charge in this city in the year 1827, and here 
he has stood up for more than forty years as one of the pillars of 
the church militant; a man of faith, of learning, and of power; 
a model of all the virtues that adorn the Christian, the minister, 
and the man, wielding a silent influence for good that is the fruit 
of years of unblemished repute and constant well-doing, and 
closing a long and honored life of usefulness with a peaceful and 
happy death in the Lord whom he loved and served. 

Dr. De Witt was a man of sound judgment, of calm, equable 
temperament, of strong opinions, and of incorruptible integrity. 
‘Well read in the Scriptures and in the learning of the religious 
schools, he was an able teacher and preacher of the Gospel, and 
in early and middle-life, and down to old age, he commanded the 
attention of the public as one of the great leaders of Christian 
thought and action in this city and country. 

Identified with the old Knickerbockers of New York, he took 
an active interest in its history, especially as related to the Dutch 
fathers of the town, and for many years he was Vice-President 
and then President of the New York Historical Society, a regu- 
lar attendant upon its meetings and zealously assisting in its 
objects. He was one of the founders and most able supporters 
of many of the great religious and philanthropic institutions of 
the Church and the country. The American Bible, Tract, Colo- 


130 VARIOUS, TRIBUTES. 


nization, and Sunday-school Societies, the Boards of the Church, 
and every wise scheme of doing good, found in Dr. De Witta 
friend whose name was a tower of strength, and whose judg- 
ment was regarded at all times with the highest confidence and 
respect. Dr. De Witt was a man of prayer. Eminently gifted, 
his voice led great assemblies with fervor to the throne of divine 
grace. His heart and mind were in heaven. He lived above 
the world. His beloved wife was called away but a few months 
ago, and his affections have been drawn more and more toward 
the city where she had gone to be with Christ. He has now en- 
tered into rest, leaving a name long to be revered in the Church 
on earth, an example of faith and constancy and faithful service 
of the Master, that is a precious legacy to his children and to the 
world. 


From “The Sower and Gospel Field.” 


It has pleased God to call from our earthly fellowship in the 
ripeness of years, after a long life of holy service, this venerable 
and beloved man of God. There is no little sadness in the de- 
parture from us of such men as he, who have always held our 
confidence as teachers, leaders, examples in faith. We cry sor- 
rowfully after them as we see them going, “ My Father, my 
Father, the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof.” We 


know that there are none left to take their places. Whatever - 


God may make us, of fewer years and slenderer growth, to our 
generation, there are none left to be to us what they have been. In 
this aspect their loss is not to be repaired. And yet it would be 

unworthy of us, and irreverent to Him who gave them, not to 


ake 
; 


VARIOUS TRIBUTES. ; 131 


recall with devout satisfaction, notwithstanding our keen sense of 
loss, their holy lives, their characteristic faith, their lofty integrity, 
‘their courageous purpose, their pure and patient testi mony, their 
good and faithful service, and to thank God that having served 
‘Him and their generation by His will, they have gone to their 
grave as a shock of corn cometh in ripe in his season, and that 
taken from us, full of years and full of honor, they link us afresh ~ 
to the General Assembly and Church of the First-born who are 
written in heaven. 

Such a thought is especially appropriate in the remembrance 
of the venerable father in God who has just been taken from our 
-earthly fellowship.. No man among us enjoyed a purer and 
more widely-spread confidence and affection, and no man de- 
served it better. Of excellent endowments and good culture, 
serene in temper, of characteristic fervor, of translucent purity 
and lofty faith, full of days, and far beyond his three-score years 
and ten, having been in the eyes of all the people Christ’s faith- 
ful soldier and servant, he has fitly held the esteem and reverence 
not only of all who belong to our own household of faith, but of 
all who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. In the church 
of his fathers no man was held in higher estimation, and to this 
he was entitled not less by his eminent position as senior minister 
of her most ancient congregation, than by his eminent excellence 
of heart and life. He did not affect the reputation of a polemic, 
nor was he called to the sturdy work of a reformer, but his lips 
were to the last eloquent for Christ, and his hand was ready for 
every good work. 

‘How completely our venerable father has been identified with 
our own ecclesiastical history will appear from a. brief sketch of 
his life and ministry. 

The Rey. Dr. Thomas De Witt was born at Kingston, Ulster 


132 , : VARIOUS TRIBUTES. 

County, N. Y., on the 13th of September, A.D. 1791. He was 
eraduated at Union College, Schenectady, N. Y., in July, 1808. 
He studied theology at the Theological Seminary of the Reform- 
ed Dutch Church at New Brunswick, N. J., where he was grad- 
uated in 1812. He was licensed to preach the Gospel by the 
Classis of New Brunswick, in June of the same year. He was 
ordained to the holy ministry in November, 1812, and installed 
minister of the united congregations of Hopewell and New 
Hackensack, in Dutchess County, N. Y. He was called to the 
Collegiate Reformed Dutch Church in the city of New York, 
and installed as one of the ministers of that church in September, 
1827, in which position he Jaid down his life and ministry on the 
morning of the 18th day of May, 1874. 

The length of the ministry of this venerable servant of God has 
been, therefore, sixty-two years, and his pastorate of the church 
in whose service he died, forty-seven years. There is recognized 
in the ministry among us no official pre-eminence, but the emi- 
nence of true worth and faithful service is fully recognized, and to 
this our father had by universal judgment acceded. The seniori- 
ty among the ministers of the Collegiate Church is moreover al- 
ways noticed with honor, and this position Dr. De Witt held for 
many years before his decease. He has been known and revered 
among us for his unusually long and faithful ministry, for his high 
Christian culture, for his ripe wisdom, and his symmetrical Chris- 
tian character. His earlier and more vigorous days are remem- 
bered for the fervent eloquence that used to carry his audience 
before it with the force of a torrent, and that, indifferent to grace 
of gesture or restrictions of rhetoric, used to send them away 
“with their hearts quivering like the strings of a harp swept by 
the hands of a master.” For more than half a century he has 
stood in the very front rank of the ministers of the great com- 


VARIOUS TRIBUTES. 133 


mercial metropolis of the nation, holding the respect and confi- 
dence of all men up to his very last hour on earth. 

In his own ecclesiastical connection he has been the object of 
reverent affection. His name stands at the head of the roll of 
graduates from the Theological Seminary of our Church. Phe 
Reformed Church of the Netherlands planted missions and 
churches in this country at a very early date. The island of 
_ Manhattan was discovered by Hendrick Hudson in 1609. The 
first traders came from Holland in 1612. At once religious ser- 
vices were established, and a church was organized in 1619. 
For more than a century the Reformed Dutch Churches in this 
country continued in immediate dependence on the Church in 
Holland. No ministers were educated here: none were ordained. 
After vehement controversy, the right to ordain was conceded 
by the mother-church, and the complete independent existence 
of the Reformed Dutch Church in, this country was secured in 
1771. But the right to educate and ordain her own ministry had 
scarcely come into her hands when the war of the Revolution 
threw everything into utter confusion. After the war, a professor 
of theology was chosen, the venerable Dr. John Henry Living- 
ston, to whose efforts mainly, under God, the independent organ- 
ization of the church in 1771 was due. This office he held along 
with his pastorate of the church in New York. Eventually he 
retired from the pastorate, and retained the professorship. In 
October, 1810, he formally opened the Theological Seminary at 
New Brunswick, N. J. The first class consisted of five students ; 
of these Dr. De Witt was one, and he was the last survivor. 
This fact has a peculiar interest to the ministry and the people 
of the Reformed Dutch Church. Dr. De Witt remained among 
us a vital link between the most eventful crisis in the history of 
our Church and its later history. He was a bond of union be- 


134 VARIOUS TRIBUTES. 


tween us and the fathers who long ago preceded us. His name 
is associated, moreover, with the beginning of the later advance © 
and prosperity of our Church. In every effort to further that 
prosperity for more than half a century he has borne a distin- 
guished part. After the decease, in 1818, of Dr. John Schure- 
man, who had shared with Dr. Livingston the charge of the 
Theological Seminary of the Church, the professorship of Orien- 
tal Literature and Ecclesiastical History in that institution was 
proffered to Dr. De Witt. This honorable and influential .posi- 
tion, which he was eminently fitted to hold, he felt constrained to 
decline, but in the Board of Superintendents of the Seminary he 
did long and faithful service. For more than thirty years he 
was a trustee of Rutgers College, New Brunswick. He was 
likewise a trustee of Columbia College, New York; and from its 
early history was a member of the Council of the University of 
the City of New York. His name is recorded among the 
founders of the Board of Education of the Reformed Dutch 
Church, and a scholarship founded by his munificent gift bears 
.the name and perpetuates the memory of his beloved son. Of 
the Board of Publication of our Church, he was one of the ear- 
liest supporters, and has been to the last its steadfast friend ; for 
many years he was its honored president. In the missionary ef- 
fort of our church he has rendered the best of service. The Re- 
formed Dutch Church has ever cherished a missionary spirit. 
As early as the year 1643, its ministers undertook missionary labors 
among the Indians. In this good work they anticipated the labors 
of the apostolic Eliot. With characteristic Christian kindness, 
in the colonial period, they sheltered the Jesuit and Recollet 
fathers, who had been driven from Canada by the murderous 
cruelty of the savage Iroquois. The Rev. Mr. Freeman, minister 
of the Church in Schenectady, about 1700, translated into Indian 


VARIOUS TRIBUTES. 135 


the morning and evening prayers of the Reformed Dutch Liturgy, 
the Ten Commandments, the Apostles’ Creed, and a considerable 
part both of the Old and New Testaments. These translations 
were printed in New York about the year 1713. In the latter 
part of the same century the Reformed Dutch Church united 
with other evangelical bodies in forming the New York Mis- 
sionary Society; and in the Northern part of the State, co- 
operated in the formation of the Northern Missionary Society. 
In the year 1816, the Presbyterians, Associate Reformed, and 
Reformed Dutch Churches united in forming the United Mis- 
sionary Society. Ten years afterwards this Society was merged 
in the American) Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. 
In January, 1822, the Missionary Society of the Reformed Dutch 
Church was organized. Its specific work was domestic missions. 
In 1832, the general synod of our Church constituted the Board 
of Foreign Missions. Of this Board Dr. De Witt was for many 
years the corresponding secretary, and with unabated interest, 
wise in counsel, and efficient in service, he remained in its mem- 
bership, being at the time of his death its honored president. 
Probably no minister of the Reformed Dutch Church has 
been more familiar with its history and literature than Dr. 
De Witt. His mastery of the Dutch language made its treasures 
of historic record accessible to him. No part of the Reformed 
Church has a grander and nobler history than this Church of ours. 
None has in her day achieved more superbly for human kind. 
She had her birth in that struggle of eighty years’ duration, in 
which the men in the Netherlands, a stubborn mass of defence- 
less traders, breasted the fearful power of the tyrant of Spain, 
and the cruel machinations of the bigot of Rome, and came out 
of the eventful agony a free Church ina free State. The world 
had never seen the like before. But the shadow on that human 


135 VARIOUS TRIBUTES. 


dial has never gone backward. Civil freedom, it was at last 
demonstrated, there could not be where there was not freedom 
of faith. Every vantage gained for the latter was just so much 
gained for the former. The heart of this gigantic struggle, pro- 
tracted through three generations, under the sient William and 
his heroic son Maurice, proved to be faith in that Christ revealed 
in the Gospel. The Martyr Church that called herself “The 
Church of Jesus in the Netherlands sitting under the cross,” came 
forth from her baptism of blood, leading by the hand the United 
States of Holland. And from this Antioch, liberty in law for 
human kind started on its grand missionary career. The superb 
history of this eventful struggle has been opened from the side 
of civil freedom by Motley, to the admiration of the world. It re- 
mains that it be depicted from the side of religious freedom by 
some worthy annalist—such, we had fondly hoped, that our vener- 
able father, as we know he could, would have been. With that 
wonderful, eventful history, we know that no man was more - 
familiar. His treasures of research were vast, and many sketches 
of great interest remain to us from his pen. But he did not turn 
aside from the work of preaching Christ, to which he was 
appointed, and the history is as yet unwritten. 
But who will complain of this that remember him in his fervor 
of eloquent pleadings for Christ? In the rapturous kindlings of 
his soul, ere yet the decrepitude of age had come upon him; in 
the passion of holy truth that poured from his lips in a very lava 
of burning eloquence, what multitudes have been won to the 
cross; what multitudes have been comforted; what multitudes 
have been strengthened and covered as with armor of proof 
against evil; what multitudes have ripened for glory. In those 
grand days of his prophetic power, he was oblivious of rhetor- 
ical rules and artificial modes, but he swayed with amazing 


VARIOUS TRIBUTES. 137 


power the hearts of men. And when, through physical weakness 
under the pressure of years, this was no longer possible, still he 
lingered among us, loving and beloved, with the halo of pure and 
precious goodness about him, kept by the grace of God to show 
to the men of. another generation in his beautiful and honored 
old age the kindness and love of God, effluent to the last. with . 
wise and winsome holiness. His home was made sweet with 
true and trusty love, and in his repeated and sore bereavements 
he was held up and made to prove the sanctifying power of his 
Father’s chastenings. When his preaching days were over, he 
dwelt among his children and his children’s children, practicing 
the truth of which he had made, in his strength, the preaching 
to be fully known, until calmly, and without a struggle, he 
resigned his spirit to the hands of Him that gave it. A good 
name is better than precious ointment. Here isthe patience of the 
saints; here are they that keep the commandments of God and 
the faith of Jesus. ‘‘ And | heard a voice from heaven saying unto 
me, Write: Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord from hence- 
forth. Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, 
and their works do follow them.” “To him that overcometh 
will I grant to sit with Me on my throne, even as I also over- 
came and am set down with my Father on His throne.” 
Ait Rot 


From“ The World,” New York. 


IN that superb collection of stained glass in the old church at 
Gouda, in Holland, there is one pane which bears the great and 
honored name of De Witt. It has its high place in the history 
of the Netherlands. The good old man, who, in the exalted 


138 VARIOUS TRIBUTES. 


duties of a clergyman, has just concluded an unstained life of 
eighty-three years, has honored that old name in the metropolis 
—in all our land. Ido not know who has gathered at the fune- 
ral ceremonies—how large, how distinguished the crowd, but I 
do know that beyond all other men, who in later years have in 
New York held this highest of all trusts, the ministration of the 
highest truths, around Dr. De Witt’s coffin should have stood as 
mourners all the clergymen of the metropolis. I would except 
none. Well might Archbishop McCloskey have summoned all 
his ecclesiastics. Well might Bishop Potter have invited all his 
ministry. I would have had all representative leaders to have 
urged their followers and associates to gather as devout men did 
around eminent saints of old. Here was the last of earth to a 
man who had worn the armor of a Christian soldier through 
every battle of life, scarred only with his Christian duty—a man 
of eloquence, of culture, of skill in the histories of sacred and 
secular affairs—a grave, dignified, old-fashioned clergyman, mas-. 
ter of pulpit skill, master of the great power of a Christian life, 
living to be useful, dying to be of blessed memory. 

It is now ever so many years since that now faded and forlorn 
old building, the present post-office, gave up forever its uses as 
the Middle Dutch Church. It had long annals of colonial and 
revolutionary and opening State life. Royal Governor, English 
soldiery, colonial officials, republicans, armed and peaceable, had 
been around it. It heard in the language of the Holland colo- 
nists the grand truths of all the ages. At last it died to sacred 
uses. It could only be reached on the quiet Sabbath by a long 
down-town walk, and the Consistory surrendered it to the pur- 
poses of the-government. I hope they felt like children saying 
farewell to their aged mother. When the last service came, and 
the congregation, in whose gathering on that occasion old memo- 


VARIOUS TRIBUTES. 139 


ries were pre-eminent, stood to listen to that which is, whenever 
and wherever given, a treasure of possession—the blessing—Dr. 
De Witt uttered it in the Holland language. The old walls, 
had they been sentient, would have been vocal with loud 
amens. | 

Early in life Thomas De Witt attained celebrity as a preacher. 
His praise was in all the churches of that body of Christians 
whose order of public worship had come down from the days 
when in the Netherlands it held high place—when, indeed, even 
to this day, it revives to us the very traditions of our fathers. 

In those days the pulpits of the Collegiate Reformed Dutch 
Church of New York City were, with Trinity, the very Canter- 
burys of American rank in church station. To be called there 
was, indeed, to be honored. Dr. De Witt had been preaching 
at Fishkill. The reputation of his ability reached the metropolis, 
and the elders and deacons of the great church summoned him 
to their service. He had the good sense to heed their call toa 
greater field of usefulness. He came, and fully did he fill their 
hope and his promise. Ever since that hour, growing into larger 
action with the advance into religious and literary thought and 
benevolent action of this great capital— whether with stately 
Governor Bradish in the sessions of the Histcrical Society, or 
with grave Dr. Dix in the counsels of the Leake and Watts Or- 
phan House, or in the conclave of his ministerial associates, or 
in the nearer and dearer intimacies of Christian counsel—per- 
haps now evolving the sacred mysteries of some hidden truth, 
now telling in the old tongue to some aged disciple the simple 
story of the Cross, coming closer to the heart to which it was 
addressed by the awakened memories of childhood, whether in the 
glory of his eloquent sermon or the tender fervor of his prayer— 
Thomas De Witt compassed the dignity and the gentleness of his 


140 VARIOUS TRIBUTES. 


grand office. He moved among us the recognized ambassador 
of heaven. 3 

Perhaps in later years it was effaced by greater carefulness, 
but at one period of his life, absent-minded to a ludicrous de-— 
gree, social circles were stirred to a smile by the familiar inci- 
dents of the manner in which the inner man seemed to forget 
the outer. Of many a pleasant absurdity there was talk over the 
tea-cup—but—all this did not efface the hope of the young girl, 
radiant in the pure illumination of her bridal day, that “dear 
old Dr. De Witt and no one else, no, indeed,” should utter the 
words that formed to her the irrevocable bond, nor did it weaken 
the hope of the aged that when their Jast hour should be in its 
darkness, that venerable pastor of their souls should soften their 
farewell with his deep libation of Christian tenderness. So he 
lived and labored—scholar, leader, teacher, faithful friend. The 
great metropolis is to-day inexpressibly poorer by such a man’s 
death. 
When the St. Nicholas Society poured out its elegance of hos- 
pitality in honor of the President soldier, their distinguished 
guest, Dr. De Witt was also at their table. Of the traditions and 
ways and lingerings among us of the mother-land, where his name 
is so lofty in history, he was custodian. To him the language of 
Grotius was yet a spoken one in New York. | 

But not in that did he win his high mark as a preacher. He 
held mastery in our own tongue, and the record of the power 
and beauty in which he conveyed the great lessons of his embas- 
sage are the cherished possessions of the Church. Even now 
there comes to my remembrance a sentence which floated out in 
his description of a sorrowing, sinful being: “ His heart melted 
in penitence and poured itself out in tears.’’ Everywhere he was 
that benediction to the world in which he moved—a holy man, 


VARIOUS TRIBUTES. I41 


When in Christian fellowship he knelt at the communion rail in 
old Trinity—-when he stood, senior and emeritus, among his own 
clergy—everywhere the old saint blended his life with his doc- 
trines. Let our city’s history give his career bright page. 


From “The New York Evangelist.” 


IT is but a few months since Dr. Spring was borne to his hon- 
ored grave, and now we are called to follow another, who, like 
him, was universally revered. Rev. Thomas De Witt, D.D., fell 
asleep on Monday, at the age of eighty-three years, for nearly 
sixty of which he has served his Master in the ministry of the 
Gospel. He was the oldest pastor in this city ; and preserving 
in advanced age a rare personal dignity, he walked among us as 
a patriarch, while all around looked up to him with affectionate 
veneration. | 

Dr. De Witt, we believe, was a native of this State; being, as 
his name indicates, a descendant of the early Dutch settlers, 
whose traditions he preserved, and whose language he spoke 
with such fluency that he often preached to a congregation of 
Hollanders in this city. His whole ministerial life was passed 
in that church which inherited the ancestral faith and name. 
When a young man, he was settled in Dutchess County, from 
which he was called to the Collegiate Church in this city, the 
most important position in-the whole body, in which he remained 
tifhis death. In the early part of his ministry, he was associated 
with Drs. Brownlee and Knox, who both passed away many 
years since; and later with Drs. Vermilye, Chambers, Ormiston, 
and Ludlow, who still remain. As a pastor of this ancient and 


~ 


142 VARIOUS TRIBUTES. 


wealthy congregation, he occupied a position which of itself 
drew upon him public attention, and which he made more con- 
spicuous by his own marked ability. When he rose in the pulpit, 
his personal appearance attracted attention. He was a man of 
large frame and commanding presence, with a deep, rich voice, 
and from the first moment fixed the attention of his audience. 
In those days he was regarded as one of the first pulpit orators 
in the country. This personal influence was increased by the 
beauty of his private life. No man ever preserved more un- 
stained the dignity of the ministerial character. He was literally 
without reproach, and his blameless life and active benevolence 
secured respect for the reigion which he represented as well as 
for himself. : 

Besides being pastor of the leading Dutch Reformed Church 
in this city, he occupied many public positions, which showed 
the universal respect and confidence with which he was regarded. 
He was an officer in the Bible and Tract and Colonization Socie- 
ties, and was for some years President of the Historical Society, 
in whose researches he took a deep interest. It was always a 
pleasant sight to see that grand old man on one of our platforms, 
and to hear his deep voice in fervent prayer. 

It is with a feeling of personal bereavement that we record the 
passing away of this venerable man; for, although our relations 
were not intimate, yet no one could come into his presence with- 
out having drawn out towards him a feeling of affection, as well 
as of respect. There was such a gentleness and courtesy united 
with his natural dignity—he was always so kind towards his 
younger brethren, that while they revered him as a patriasch, 
they loved him as a father. We have not many such men among 
us, and when one falls like an oak in the forest, we feel that the 
world is poorer for his being gone. But he leaves behind hm 


VARIOUS TRIBUTES. 143. 


what cannot die—the legacy to his children and to the world of 
a noble Christian life, the memory of his virtues, and the influ- 
ence of his example. 


¢ 


From “The Standard,’ Amsterdam. 


Rey. M. Conen Srtruart, D.D., wrote an elaborate article 
on Dr. De Witt, in the Zoxdagsblad Van de Standaard, from 
which the following is extracted : 


Dr. Stuart, after having spoken in the highest terms on the 
noble character of Dr. De Witt, draws a parallel between him 
and no less a personage than the well-known, highly esteemed, 
and celebrated Merle d’Aubigné. ‘“ Their similarity,” said Dr. 
Stuart, “was so striking, that he could never look at our vener- 
able father Dr. De Witt, without being reminded of Merle d’Au- 
bigné. Both he describes as patriarchs and pillars of the Chris- 
_ tian Church; and both are known in a wide circle as the church 
fathers of the present century. Both had much that belonged 
only to themselves, and yet possessed many things in common. 
Was the one mighty with the pen, the other was so much more 
born for the pulpit and the platform. . 

‘Both distinguished themselves in grandeur and formality, 
which nevertheless, by neither of them, bore the least character 
of affectation or unnaturalness. If d’Aubigné was more loqua- 
cious and of a more genial appearance, De Witt, as a man of 
uncommon stature and erectness of posture, even in his advanced 
age, possessed a visage expressing the deepest piety and most 


I44 VARIOUS TRIBUTES. 


dignified earnestness. Neither of them could show themselves, 
even to such who never had seen them before, without awaken- 
ing attention and inspiring reverence.” 

And not to continue the exact parallel much longer, Dr. Stuart 
said, as a word of true homage to the memory of Dr. De Witt, 
‘that our venerable father not only bore the name of the most 
celebrated man of our history, but has borne it with honor and 
glory, and added unto it the crown of the highest Christian no- 
bility of America.” Dr. Stuart interested his Dutch readers not 
less with a copy of the biographical outline of the character of 
Dr. De Witt, by Rev. J. M. Ludlow, D.D., and stated further 
that to learn to know Dr. De Witt was one of the greatest among 
the many never-to-be-forgotten blessings he was permitted to en- 
joy in his travels through America. He also alludéd to Dr. De 
Witt’s remarkable knowledge of the Dutch language, his memo- 
rizing capacity,and fresh remembrance of Groen Van Prinstesee, 
Da Costa, Capadoce, and other Christian gentlemen of the Neth- 
erlands. He referred to the singularly composed, calm, and sub- 
missive Christian faith of Dr. De Witt in his saddest affliction, as 
was manifested at the funeral service of Mrs. De Witt; when, 
after many of the friends had spoken the most touching words 
to the blessed memory of the departed wife and mother, the 
aged Dr. De Witt rose, and bowing over the open grave, said 
with deep emotion, ‘“ Farewell, faithful and beloved wife! the tie 
that joined us is broken. Thou art now with Jesus in glory. 
He is with me through His grace. I come quickly to thee; 
farewell!” He came quickly. The Lord was with him unto 
the end of his life; a beautiful life was crowned with a beauti- 
ful death; his upright, blameless life hath had a serene and 
peaceful end. 


VARIOUS TRIBUTES. 145 


Wrote Professor Schaff to Dr. Stuart, “He has gone out— 


“As fades the Summer cloud away, 
As sinks the gale when storms are o’er, 
As gently shuts the eye of day. 
As dies the wave along the shore.” 


And then our dear brother Stuart closed his well-said article 
with the following beautiful remarks: “Thomas De Witt shall 
continue to live in honor in America, but we Hollanders have 
reason to thank God that the old Holland stem has so worthily 
been represented clsewhere. He has honored our name and 
memory in a strange land; may his name never be forgotten in 


the Netherlands.”’ 
A. H. BECHTHOLD, 


Pastor of the Holland Church. 





See SOLUTIONS OF SOCIETIES 


AND 


INSTITUTIONS OF LEARNING. 


she 





Rory U Tt ON: S. 


THE REFORMED PROTESTANT DutcuH CHURCH OF THE CITY or NEW 
YORK, IN Consistory May 19, 1874. 


THE President announced that Rev. Thomas De Witt, D.D., 
the senior pastor of this Church, died yesterday morning at twenty 
minutes before éleven o'clock ; whereupon it was’ RESOLVED, that 
a committee be appointed to prepare a minute, and recommend 
such course of action as might be proper in the premises. Rev. 
Drs. Ormiston and Ludlow, and Elders Sturgis, Clarkson, Dem- 
arest, and Wood, were appointed the Committee, who then re- 
tired, and after consultation, returned, and reported the follow- 
ing resolutions and minute, which were adopted: 

Resolved, That a committee of six be appointed to make all proper ar- 
rangements for the funeral, and that they consult with the family of the 
deceased, and fully carry out their wishes as to the details and order of 
the funeral. 


Messrs. G. G. Smith, Locke, Clarkson, Bookstaver, Graham, and Van 
Arsdale, were appointed as such Committee. 


Resolved, That this Consistory, the Ministers, Elders, and Deacons, at- 
-tend the funeral as mourners, and wear the usual badge of mourning. 


Resolved, That we meet in the Consistory Room in the Middle Church, on 
the day of the funeral, Thursday next, at one o’clock P.m., and proceed 
in a body to the house to join the procession. 


Resolved, That the Church Masters drape in mourning the pulpits of 
Churches and Mission Chapels, and such other parts thereof as they may 
think proper. 

(149) 


150 RESOLUTIONS OF SOCIETIES AND 
- ) 
Resolved, That the expenses of Dr. De Witt’s funeral be borne -by the 
Consistory, and that the Treasurer pay the same. 


Resolved, That the following minute in reference to the decease of the 
‘senior pastor be placed upon the record of the Consistory, viz. : 


The Consistory reverently recognize the hand of God in the removal of 
their venerable, revered, and greatly beloved senior pastor, and gratefully 
desire to express their devout thanksgivings to the Great Head of the 
Church for sparing so long a life, so valued and so dear to them. - 

For nearly half a century has he ably, faithfully, and acceptably per- 
formed the duties of a pastor in this Church, during which he won the 
hearts of our fathers as he lived in our own. His form was dear to every 
eye, and his memory will be sacred in all our hearts. | 

The Rev. Dr. Thomas De Witt was installed as a pastor of the Col- 
legiate Church on the 16th of September, 1827, and till 1872, discharged 
all the duties of an active pastorate, and continued till within a few days 
of his departure to take part in the public services of the sanctuary and to 
visit members of the congregation. He was truly a man of God, an ex- 
ample to his flock, and an able minister of the Gospel of Christ.. His 
piety was sincere and unobtrusive, profound and heartfelt, consistent and 
often joyous; a piety of principle, early instilled and sedulously cultivated. 
His deportment was characterized by a dignified plainness, a noble sim- 
plicity, and an unsophisticated sincerity, which rendered it impossible for 
him to appear other than he was. His daily walk was worthy of his vocation 
as a child of God, a servant of the Lord. Asa preacher he was endowed 
with rare gifts, which he consecrated wholly to his life-work. His dis- 
courses, often thrillingly eloquent, were always impressive and instructive, 
replete with sound sentiment, just criticism, and apt illustration. 

As a pastor, he was gentle and tender, wise and d’scriminating, full of 
kindness and sympathy. In the chamber of suffering and in the house of 
mourning, he was ever a welcome, as he was a frequent visitor, and to 
many a grieving heart, he was a “son of consolation.”’ Since the lament- 
ed death of Dr. John Knox, in 1858, he has been the Senior Colleague, 
and by all his fellow-laborers revered as a patriarch and beloved as a: 
father. 

He took a deep interest not only in what pertained to the prosperity of 
the Collegiate congregations, but in all that concerned the weal of the Re- 
formed Dutch Church in this country, or affected the progress of the 


INSTITUTIONS OF LEARNING. I51 
kingdom of Christ in the world. He has been long associated with 
many institutions, religious, benevolent, and literary,in which he held 
prominent positions of honor and trust, and which he aided alike by his 
counsels and his influence. 

In all the relations of life, private and public, he was most exemplary 
for thorough conscientiousness and inflexible integrity. So great were 
the simplicity of his character and the spotlessness of his conduct, that not 
even the breath of calumny ever dimmed the lustre of his reputation dur-. 
ing the tenor of a protracted public life. 

His long, useful, honored, and fully rounded life was crowned with a 
peaceful, hopeful, triumphant death. He literally fell asleep in Jesus on 
the forenoon of Monday, 18th inst. He rests from his labors, and his 
works will follow him. The Consistory sincerely sympathize with the be- 
reaved family (they, too, deeply feel their loss), and tenderly greet them in 
terms of Christian condolence and joyous hope, assuring them that they will 
ever gratefully and lovingly cherish the memory of their sainted father, 
and will fervently pray that the blessings of their father’s God may ever 
rest upon them and theirs till the latest generation. 


Resolved, That our senior pastor, Rev. Dr. Vermilye, be requested to 
preach a memorial sermon on the occasion, in each of our churches at his 
earliest convenience. 


[Extract from the minutes. | 
GEOe Seo Lids Lyn Cler er, 
MAY I9, 1874. 


THE CLASSIS OF NEW YORK. 


AT a meeting of the Classis of New York, held May 2tst, 1874, 
the following paper was adopted: 


The Classis has received with great grief the announcement of the death 
of the Rev. Dr. Thomas De Witt, our senior member, after a ministry of 
sixty-two years, and a pastorate in the Collegiate Church, and a con- 
nection with this Classis of forty-seven years. 

Dr. De Witt was of pure Dutch descent on his father’s side, and on his 


72 RESOLUTIONS OF SOCIETIES AND 


mother’s of the French Huguenots; a lineage of happy combination in 
both elements of which, intelligence, integrity, independence, and earnest 
piety have been conspicuous; nor can either race boast of a nobler scion 
than our deceased father. 


He was naturally of a sedate, grave disposition, and early gave evidence 
of humble and sincere piety. After graduating at an early age at Union 
College, with distinguished honor, his attention was directed to the Gospel 
Ministry as his life-work. His studies with this object were conducted at 
first at Schraalenburg, by Dr. Freighly, then Synod’s Professor of Theolo- 
gy. But when Dr. Livingston assumed the Professorship in the Seminary 
at New Brunswick, he went thither, and was one of the first there who 
graduated from that Seminary in 1812. In the same year he was licensed 
to preach by the Classis of New Brunswick; and in the autumn of the 
same year was ordained and settled in the united charge of Hopewell and 
New Hackensack. There he pursued a faithful and useful ministry, ten- 
derly beloved by the people of his charge, until 1827, when he accepted a 
call twice tendered to him by the Collegiate Church, to become one of its 
pastors, in which connection he continued until his decease. 


He was a man of goodly person and dignified presence, of large scope 
of mind, well imbued with theology, learned in history, particularly in that 
pertaining to Holland, and the early Dutch and Huguenot settlements in 
this country. He was singularly modest, very discreet in his intercourse 
with his fellow-men, attracting unlimited respect and confidence by his 
calmness, candor, and sound judgment. He was firmly attached to his 
mother church, in whose communion and ministry his whole life was 
passed. But it was an attachment without narrowness or bigotry, as 
his paternal “ God speed” to all of every denomination who love the Lord 
Jesus Christ in sincerity, and his cordial co-operation with the various 
Christian societies which characterize our age, fully attest. 


As a preacher he was copiously endowed, free, fluent, and his sermons 
and public addresses were at times surpassingly eloquent. Ina good old 
age he has been gathered to his fathers, after a short illness, and without a 
struggle; leaving a record which the whole Church may contemplate with 
gratitude to Him who raised him up, and so richly furnished him for his 
great work. Therefore, 


Resolved, That while we bow with submission under this bereavement, 
we render humble thanks to God for His goodness to His servant during 


INSTITUTIONS OF LEARNING. 153 


his long life; for the gifts and graces with which He endowed him ; and 
for the godly example and useful ministry He enabled him to maintain. 


Resolved, That this paper be entered in full upon the Minutes of 
Classis; and that the Classis in a body will now attend the funeral 
services. ; 


Resolved, That the Stated Clerk have this record engrossed and _ pre- 
sented to the family of our deceased father, signed by the President and 


Stated Clerk. 
WM. DE HART, Séated Clerk, pro tem. 


RESOLUTIONS OF THE BOARD OF SUPERINTENDENTS OF THE THEOLOG- 
ICAL SEMINARY OF THE REFORMED CHURCH. 


WueErEAS, It has pleased the Almighty Disposer of human events to 
spare our beloved brother, the Rev. Thomas De Witt, D.D., to reach an 
advanced age in the ministry of the Gospel, and in the active service of 
the Church of Christ, and then to grant him a happy deliverance from 
protracted suffering in the article of death; therefore, 


Resolved, That it becomes us, the Board of Superintendents of the 
Theological Seminary, to express our devout thanks to his God and our 
God, for the bestowment of so great a gift upon that branch of the Church 
with which we are connected, as we have realized in the life of faith, ac- 
tivity, and efficiency now closed so happily upon the earth, both to our 
sorrow and to our joy. 


Resolved, That in the removal of our brother, while we bow in submission 
to the will of our Heavenly Father, we recognize a great loss to the denomina- 
tion of the Church of Christ with which he was always connected, in which 
with undeviating exactitude he has pursued the “path of the just which 
shineth more and more to the perfect day,” and to which he has successfully 
devoted rare talents as a preacher of the everlasting Gospel, exerting a wide 
and commanding influence for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ and the 
enlargement of the Reformed Church, to whose denominational interc: <s 
and peculiarities he was ardently attached, in perfect consistency with that 


154 RESOLUTIONS OF SOCIETIES AND 


enlightened zeal and enlarged liberality that deservedly endeared him to 
every Christian heart, and whose praise is in all‘the churches. 


Resolved, Since our departed brother was a member of the first class 
(1812), graduated from this Seminary, to whose interests he was ever 
after attached, for whose prosperity he has given a long and valuable co- 
operation, often acting as a member of this Board, we regard it due to his 
memory to record our sense of obligation to him, as well as our gratitude to 
God for the well-directed labors, the eminent piety, the sound learning and 
practical usefulness of our departed brother, whose works shall follow him 
to the praise of the grace of God, as they have abounded in his illustrative — 
life. 


Resolved, That we tender our sympathy to the bereaved family connec- 
tions of the deceased, and to the church so long favored with the faithful 
ministrations of our brother, reminding them that this grief admits of mu- 
tual alleviation ; while we express our hope that all of his associates and 
brethren in the ministry may be as well prepared to render their respect- 
ive accounts to the Master. 


Resolved, That these resolutions be recorded on the Minutes of this 
Board, and be published in the Sower and Gospel Field, and in the Chris- 


tian Intelligencer. 
Respectfully submitted, 


~W. R. GORDON, Chatrman: 
HERTZOG HALL, NEW BURNSWICK, 
May 20th, 1874. 


RESOLUTIONS OF THE BOARD OF PUBLICATION. 


The Board of Publication have received with profound sorrow the 
announcement of the decease of the venerable and beloved Dr. Thomas 
De Witt. From the beginning of our existence as a Board of the Church 
he has been a faithful friend and a cordial helper in our work. For a 
long time he has held the office of our president. His devoted loyalty to 
our ancestral Church, his wise counsel, his cheerful encouragement, made 


INSTITUTIONS OF LEARNING. 155 


him of inestimable value to us, and his departure from us leaves a void 
which it will not be possible to fill. We are thankful to God that his 
precious life has been so long spared to us. We cherish the fragrant 
memory of his good name and blessed work for Christ, and we pray that 
by the grace of God we may be enabled to follow him as he followed the 
Lord. The Board desire to express their deep sympathy with his house- 
hold in their great bereavement, and direct that a copy of this minute be 
entered on the records of the Board, and a duly authenticated copy be 
sent to his family and be published in the Sower, and the Board of 
Publication will attend in a body his funeral. 


J. A. LANSING, Cor. See. 
NEw YORK, May 19th, 1874. 


AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY. 


At a meeting of Managers of the Board of the American 
Bible Society, June 14th, 1874, the following memorial paper 
was unanimously adopted: 


The Board of Managers of the American Bible Society are called to 
mourn the loss of the Rev. Thomas De Witt, D.D., who departed this life 
May 18th, 1874, at his late residence in this city. His long association 
with this Institution as Chairman of the Committee on Agencies, from the 
date of its organization in 1846, until his resignation on account of age 
and infirmity in 1873, his wise counsels and faithful attendance at the 
meetings of this Board, and his eloquent pleadings in the pulpit and on 
anniversary occasions, have established large claims upon our grateful 
memories of this venerable co-laborer in the work of this Society. Many 
years ago, in company with the late Secretary, the Rev. Dr. Brigham, Dr. 
De Witt visited the South, and by his public addresses and judicious influ- 
ences, rendered great service to the cause. Standing in the next rank to 
the founders of this Institution, and associated with most of them in its 
earliest work, he has for nearly half a century been among its leading 
spirits. He loved the Word of God in its fullness, and proclaimed its 


156 RESOLUTIONS OF SOCIETIES AND 


saving truths and its pure moralities with intense ardor and characteristic 
faithfulness. In the broad and catholic plans of this Society for the 
translation and circulation of the Holy Scriptures, he always manifested 
intelligent zeal and active generosity. His heart was aglow with its spirit, 
and his hands were ready for every good work. Dr. De Witt was born at 
Twaalfskill, near Kingston, Ulster County, N. Y., Sept. 13th, 1791, his 
father being of pure Holland descent, and his mother of the French Hu- 
guenot stock. His father, who was an officer in the army of the Revolu- 
tion, gave him a good education, and at an early age “he gave himself to 
the Lord in a covenant never to be broken.” Graduating at Union Col- 
lege, in 1808, with distinguished honor, and from the Seminary at New 
Brunswick, N. J., in the first class which was sent forth from that oldest 
theological institution in our country, under the care of the revered Dr. 
Livingston, in 1812, Dr. De Witt settled as pastor of the United Reformed 
Dutch Churches of Hopewell and New Hackensack, Dutchess Co., N. Y., at 
the early age of twenty-one. After fourteen years of active service, he ac- 
cepted the call, which he had once declined, to the Collegiate Dutch 
Church in this city in 1827; having for his associate ministers at that 
time the Rev. Drs. Kuypers, Knox, and Brownlee. In this eminent po- 
sition, he remained forty-seven years, until his decease, “beloved for his 
works sake,” “approved in Christ.” Dr. De Witt was truly a representa- 
tive man, not only in the church of his fathers, but in the whole circle of 
Christian churches and charities, and other important institutions of this 
city. Blameless in his work, decided in his opinions and character, and 
entirely devoted to his vocation as a Christian preacher and pastor, he 
commanded the unqualified respect of all who knew him. His noble 
presence and child-like simplicity of manner, his non-affected humility 
and sterling common-sense, with his candor and pious fervor, were the at- 
tractions of his vigorous manhood, and the graces of his sweet old age. 
Beautifully has Providence fulfilled in him that patriarchal promise, “ Thou 
shalt come to:thy grave in a full age like as a shock of corn cometh in in 
his season.” After a ministry of sixty-two years, and a life of more than 
fourscore and two years, he sleeps in Jesus. In happy memory of our de- 
parted father and helper, this Board of Managers hereby record their hum- 
ble submission to the will of God, who has taken His aged servant so 
peacefully to Himself, and their heartfelt sympathy with the bereaved 
relatives. And it is therefore 

Resolved, That this memorial be entered upon the minutes of the Board 


? 


INSTRUCTIONS OF LEARNING. I 57 


and published in the Bzble Society Record, and that a certified copy of the 
same be sent to the family of the deceased. 


[From the minutes. | 
A. L. TAYLER, Recording Sec, 


NEw YORK CriTy MISSION. 


Ina meeting of the New York City Mission and Tract Society, 
held this day, the following minute was adopted: 


In the death of the Rev. Thomas De Witt, D.D., the City Mission and 


Tract Society has lost its beloved and esteemed President, who was its 
warm and steadfast friend through all its history, and who presided 
over all its meetings for the last twenty-eight years. 

This Society was first instituted in 1827, the same year in which Dr. 
De Witt was installed pastor in the Collegiate Church, a coincidence to 
which he after adverted with interest. | 

It is matter of devout thankfulness that one in whom all denomina- 
tions of Christians reposed such entire confidence, and who always and 
everywhere received such a large share of reverence and affection, should 
have been spared so long to give us the benefit of his rich experience and 
judicious advice, and consistent example. 

In this, as in many other religious and. benevolent associations which 
enjoyed Dr. De Witt’s active aid and zealous co-operation, his influence 
was always esteemed and valued as that of a good man, full of the Holy 
Ghost and of faith. His upright, blameless life had a serene and peace- 
ful end. i 


* As fades a summer cloud away, 
As sinks the gale when storms are o’er, 
As gently shuts the eye of day, 
As dies the wave upon the shore.” 


He has come to an honored grave in full age, like a shock of corn 


cometh in in his season. 
The members of this Society, while they mourn their loss, plainly hear 


158 RESOLUTIONS OF SOCIETIES AND 


a voice from heaven, saying: “ Blessed are the dead which die in the 
Lord, from henceforth yea: saith the spirit, that they may rest from their 
labors, and their works do follow them.” 


Attest. L. E. JACKSON, Secretary. 


MAY 21, 1874. 


AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY OF NEW YORK. 


When the American Tract Society was formed, May, 1825, and many 
doubted whether Christians of different denominations could unite in a 
Tract Society which would be virtually a comment on the Bible, the 
speakers publicly advocating the union, were the President, S. V. S. Wil- 
der, Esq., Dr. Justin Edwards, Secretary of the Tract Society at Boston, 
Bishop MclIlvaine, Rev. Mr. Summerfield, and Rev. Dr. De Witt, then 
pastor in Fishkill. 

Dr. De Witt’s speech is preserved, and is as able, compact, and yet gen- 
erous and confiding an address as is perhaps anywhere to be found. It 
closes with the beautiful and affecting words which Milton represents 
Adam as addressing to Eve, after they had wearied themselves with 
mutual complaints and accusations of each other: 


‘But rise, let us no more contend, nor blame 
Each other, blamed enough elsewhere ; but strive 
In offices of love, how we may lighten 
Each other’s burden, in our share of woe.” 


In 1835, Dr. De Witt, Dr. William R. Williams, and: Dr. Cutler were a 
committee to award four premiums of fifty dollars each for the four best 
short tracts that should be written, by which a number of excellent tracts 
were secured. 

In 1856, he acted on the honored committee of fifteen, to whom was 
referred the question of the duty of the Society as to issuing tracts on the 
curse of slavery. 

In 1858, he was elected a member of the Society’s Publishing Commit- 
tee, in place of Rev. Dr. Knox, deceased, and, from 1861, was the beloved 


INSTRUCTIONS OF LEARNING. 159 


and revered Chairman, both of the Society’s Publishing and Executive 
Committees, cheering the Society year by year at its anniversaries, by 
gratifying statements of its prosperity and usefulness. 

WSrArH, 


New York HIsTORICAL SOCIETY. 


At a stated meeting of the New York Historical Society, held 
in its Hall on Tuesday evening, October 6th, 1874, the Rev. 
Thomas E. Vermilye, D.D., LL.D., read a memorial of the Rev. 
Thomas De Witt, D.D., prepared at the request of the Executive 
Committee. 

Upon its conclusion, the following resolutions, submitted by 
Mr. George H. Moore, were adopted unanimously, viz. : 


Resolved, That this Society has received with much profound sensibility 
the announcement of the death of its late President, the Rev. Thomas De 
Witt, D.D., and renews the record of grateful appreciation with which it 
recalls the memory of his long, continued, and valuable labors in its service, 
and, as it then followed him into his retirement with loving remembrance 
and the earnest hope that he might long live to enjoy a full measure of 
that repose to which his age and faithful public services so richly entitled 
him, so now, when he sleeps with his fathers, it cherishes his memory 
with affectionate and lasting regard. 


Resolved, That a copy of these proceedings be communicated to the 
family of the deceased. 


[Extract from the minutes. | 
ANDREW WARNER, Recording Sec’y. 


160 RESOLUTIONS OF SOCIETIES AND 


THE SCHOOL OF THE COLLEGIATE DUTCH CHURCH. 


At a special meeting of the Board of Trustees of the school 
of the Collegiate Dutch Church, held this day, the following 
preamble and resolutions were unanimously adopted : 


WueEREAS, God in His providence has called to his rest our venerable 
and esteemed pastor, Rev. Thomas De Witt, D.D.; therefore, be it 


Resolved, That in his decease this school has lost a warm and steadfast 
friend, who had endeared himself to its scholars by his earnest prayers in 
their behalf and by his just and fatherly counsels. 


Resolved, That we sincerely and affectionately sympathize with his be- 
reaved family in this dispensation of Providence, which has deprived them 
of a venerated father, this school of an earnest well-wisher, and our an- 
cient church of one of its most faithful servants, whose meat and drink it 
was to do his Master’s will, who by his life exemplified the doctrines 
which he taught, and in his death has shown us that the end of the upright 
man is peace. 


Resolved, That out of respect to his memory and of regard for his Chris- 
tian worth, that the school be closed on the day of his funeral, and that 
the anniversary exercises be postponed; and that this Board ard the 
teachers of the school attend his funeral in a body. 


Resolved, That these resolutions be communicated to the family of the 
deceased, and published in the Chrestian [ntelligencer. 


JOHN C. CALHOUN, Chazrman. 
NEw YorRK, Jay 19, 1874. ALEXIS A. JULIEN. Secretary. 


At the meeting of the Trustees of Rutgers College, held at 
New Brunswick, October 6, 1874, the following resolutions were 
adopted : 


Resolved, That in the death of the Rev. Dr. Thomas De Witt the Trus- 
tees of Rutgers College have experienced a great loss. For forty-four 


INSTITUUIONS OF LEARNING. 161 


years a trustee, he was always a wise counsellor, a faithful friend, a liberal 
donor to the College. Loving the church of his fathers with a warmth 
and purity of affection that was truly beautiful, he loved all its institutions. 
For the College his love knew no change but that of increase.. He shared 
in all its sorrows and rejoiced in all its joys. Another may occupy his 
place, but for us, at least, who labored with him in sorrow and joy, in fear 
and hope, it can never be filled. 


Resolved, That as a mark of our high regard the place in the Board 
made vacant by his death will not be filled for one year. 


Resolved, ‘That we tender to the children of the deceased our sympathy 
in their bereavement, but rejoicing most of all that God gave them a father 
worthy of their warmest love and closest imitation. 


WILLIAM H. CAMPBELL, 
GUSTAVUS ABEEL, Committee. 
BENJAMIN C. TAYLOR, 

(A true copy.) DAVID D. DEMAREST, Secretary. 


NEW BRUNSWICK, October 6, 1874. 


ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 


The following resolutions were passed at the late meeting of 
the Alumni Association of the Theological Seminary at New 
Brunswick : 


Resolved, That this Association has heard, with profound sorrow, of the 
decease of the Rev. Dr. Thomas De Witt, the last of the first class of 
graduates from this Seminary, after its establishment at New Brunswick. 


Resolved, That while we mourn as for a father in the gospel whom we 
have lost, we record our high sense of his worth as a man of God, blame- 
less in his manner of life; in walk and conversation an example to all his 
brethren; faithful and eloquent as a preacher of the Gospel; kind and 
gentle as a pastor; wise as a counsellor; ready for every good word and 
work; loyal to every denominational interest; full of charity to Christians 


162 RESOLUTIONS OF SOCIETIES AND 


of every name, and ready to co-operate in every work for the promotion 
of the kingdom of God. 


Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent to the family of the 
deceased, and that they be published in the Christian Intelligencer and 


The Sower. 
JOHN L. SEE, Secreray 


BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


At a regular meeting of the Board of Foreign Missions of the 
Reformed Church, held June 18th, the following minute was 
adopted: 


WHEREAS, It has pleased God our Heavenly Father to take from our 
earthly fellowship our venerated and beloved father, Thomas De Witt, 
D.D., the Board of Foreign Missions of the Reformed Church in America 
desire to put on record their sense of his precious worth, his holy devo- 
tion, his sound wisdom, and his lifelong fidelity to the foreign missionary 
work of our Church. His membership of this Board dates from its organi- 
zation in 1832. For many years of the more active period of his life he 
filled the office of its Corresponding Secretary. During the later years of 
his life he was its honored President. The remembrance of his pure life, 
devoted to Christ in the work of His Church, will linger with us so long 
as the power of memory remains. We bless God that He spared to us 
His faithful servant so long, and when He took him away it was as a 
shock of corn cometh in its season. And we humbly pray that the power 
of his example in faith and holiness, and a double portion of his spirit 
may rest upon us. 


Resolved, That this minute, properly authenticated, be entered on the 
record of the Board, be published in Zhe Sower and Gospel Field and 
Christian Intelligencer, and be transmitted to the family of Dr. De Witt. 


A. R. THOMPSON, Commtttee. 
Ciohi WEES 


INSTITUTIONS OF LEARNING. 163 


THE CONSISTORY OF THE REFORMED CHURCH, HopEwELt, N. Y. 


Ata meeting of the Consistory of the Reformed Church of 
Hopewell, N.Y., held May 24, 1874, the following action was 
taken upon the announcement of the death of the Rev. Thomas 
Pewitt, D.D.: 


WHEREAS, It has pleased the Great Head of the Church to remove from 
the lower to the upper temple, the venerable and honored father who for 
many years ministered to this people in the Gospel of the blessed God ; 


WHEREAS, It is befitting this occasion of sorrow that we should place 
upon the records of our church some tribute of respect and affection to 
the memory of him who, giving to it the prime of his manhood and the 
first fruits of his great ingathering, served it so long and so well; therefore,. 


Resolved, That with devout gratitude we recall the cherished memories 
of his faithful pastorate of fifteen years over our church, and the evidence 
written in our records and upon the hearts of many of the living, showing 
that the blessing of the Master crowned his labors. 


Resolved, That we bear testimony to the deep reverence and affection in 
which, after an absence of nearly fifty years, his memory is still held by 
our people. 


Resolved, That we return thanksgiving to God for the noble testimony 
and eminent services of his long ministry, which, though begun here, 
and ever continued in the church of his fathers, belong to the Church 
- Universal. ” : 
GRAHAM TAYLOR, Preszdent. 
G. W. EVANS, Clerk. 


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